The infrastructure to store the much-awaited COVID-19 vaccine establishes further in Lucknow as the city has received 4 specially designed refrigerators(ILR), each with a holding capacity of 225 litres. The fridges reached the Aishbagh cold storage centre, from where it was re-centred and stored at a building next to the Urban Health Centre and Woman and Child Hospital, which is a dedicated storage unit of the COVID-19 vaccine in Lucknow.
The city officials have started preparing the list, indexing medical staff and frontline workers who will receive the vaccine dose in the first phase of immunisation. The list includes about 14,000 municipal corporation staff and nearly 20,000 policemen, including traffic police personnel and home guards.
Special IRLs arrive in Lucknow
The coronavirus vaccine is required to be stored at a controlled temperature, regulated between 2-degree Celsius to 8-degree celsius in order to maintain its efficacy. In anticipation of the soon arriving vaccine vials, the immunisation authorities have started to prepare an orderly system, to ensure streamlined storage of these medicinal shots. The new IRLs that reached Lucknow on Thursday, were stored in a building next to the Urban Health Centre and Woman and Child Hospital, where a space of 24,000 square meters has been dedicated for the same. The DG, Medical Health pointed out that the ground and first floor of this building has been dedicated to storing the vaccine.
Apart from this building, the city has earmarked two residential blocks in close vicinity for the storage of the vaccine. The Director-General of Medical Health has reportedly said that the new IRLs will set up the city’s cold chain system, aligning with the already existing temperature-controlled system at all centres of routine vaccination.
The official in-charge of routine immunisation in Lucknow stated that it was still early to comment on the storage unit of each fridge, with respect to the number of vials per box. Similarly, the number of IRLs required to smoothly authenticate the mass immunisation procedure in Lucknow can not be confirmed as of now.
Lucknow plans to vaccinate its health care workers and other front line soldiers in the first phase of coronavirus vaccination drive, including municipal staff, policemen etc. The city officials have already started preparing a list of the first phase beneficiaries that has crossed the 40,000 mark. The second phase of the drive will focus on the elderlies, i.e, people over the age of 50 years.
This information was first reported by Hindustan Times
