Delhi Airport says it s ready for Covid vaccine distribution challenge - india news hindustantimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hindustantimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Workers transport an Envirotainer, a temperature-cooled container, at the airport.
Distributing vaccines around India will pose plenty of logistical headaches given the size of the country, its vast population and number of coronavirus cases, now at more than 10 million.
For its part, India s busiest airport is completely ready to handle Covid-19 vaccines, according to Delhi International Airport Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Videh Kumar Jaipuriar, but there could be issues elsewhere considering more remote areas may not be equipped with sufficient equipment and containers. One of the key challenges will be the availability of cold chain across India, he said.
New Delhi s airport Indira Gandhi International will be a main handling point and has facilities to store 2.7 million vials of vaccine at 2-to-8 degrees Celsius, as well as cooling chambers that can keep temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius, Jaipuriar said.
Delhi airport says it s ready for Covid-19 vaccine distribution challenge freemalaysiatoday.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from freemalaysiatoday.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
updated: Dec 22 2020, 21:16 ist
By Chris Kay,
The developer of India’s main homegrown coronavirus vaccine is already producing millions of doses of its yet-to-be-authorised candidate, but says the thought of supplying enough shots for half the country’s nearly 1.4 billion people is daunting.
“It’s nightmarish,” said Suchitra Ella, joint managing director of Bharat Biotech International Ltd. “Sometimes I get goosebumps, sometimes I wake up early in the morning wondering where are we. What are we doing? How do we get there?”
Bharat Biotech has already produced about 10 million doses of its still-in-trials Covaxin shot, ahead of an anticipated roll out by the middle of next year. It has a current annual capacity of 300 million vaccines and expects the first 100 million to be deployed by India, which has partly financed the development.
Coronavirus vaccine
India’s total number of COVID-19 cases are at 1,00,99,066, out of which 2,89,240 are active cases. The Central government is expected to have some big announcement related to the vaccine on December 25. India is likely to approve Oxford/AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for emergency use in the country by next week, after its local manufacturer submitted additional data sought by authorities. It could be the first country to give the nod to the British vaccine as the British regulators continue trials.
India wants to start immunizing its citizens next month and is also considering emergency use authorization applications for vaccines made by Pfizer Inc and Bharat Biotech. The government has said that it will release one of these vaccines to the public as soon as the clinical data provided is found satisfactory.