PATNA: The vaccine house at
Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH) here, arguably one of the largest in the country, has been picked as the state-level storage facility for
Covid-19 vaccine. Nine regional cold storages have also been identified for storage of the vaccine.
Five walk-in cold rooms (WICR) are currently functional at NMCH to store different vaccines for routine immunisation in the state. NMCH superintendent Dr Binod Kumar Singh said these five WICRs can accommodate 15 lakh vaccine vials at a time and efforts are on to enhance the capacity to store Covid-19 vaccine. “Two additional WICRs are being readied to store six lakh additional vials, increasing the total capacity to 21 lakh. Since rooms are already there, only logistic work has to be taken care of. The improved facility will be ready by a week,” he added.
“The vaccines will be brought to the city through flights. From airport, the vaccines will be transferred to the WICRs through freezer vans. They will later be transported to different districts as per the need. The vaccines once stored at the hospital will not be there for a long time,” Dr Singh said.
The state has targeted to store at least 2.37 crore vials against its existing capacity of 1.37 crore. The additional one crore capacity will be exclusively for Covid-19 vaccines.
On Tuesday, state health minister Mangal Pandey had said that apart from a state-level cold storage for vaccine, there will be 10 regional-level storages in Patna, Aurangabad, Saran, Muzaffarpur, East Champaran, Darbhanga, Saharsa, Purnia, Bhagalpur and Nalanda districts.