A ten-member task force, set up by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to oversee inoculation drive in Mumbai, held its first meeting on Friday. The team, headed by Suresh Kakani, Additional Municipal Commissioner of BMC, said it has come up with a blueprint of the plan on storage, transport and distribution of the vaccine against COVID-19 in the financial capital of India.
“We have prepared a blue print regarding the vaccine. In today’s meeting, we had detailed discussion about the distribution and storage of the vaccine,” said Kakani.
Speaking in detail about the task force’s plan, he said, “As per the blue print, there will be five sections in the plan. First is storage. We have adequate storage facility available in medical collage hospitals. We are preparing additional storage facility in Mumbai’s Kanjur Marg area also. The facility will be ready by the end of this month. Second is transportation plan. We have discussed in detail how to carry the vaccine to different centers from the storage facility. We have additional cold storage boxes with us where we can keep the vaccines according to the required temperature.”
The BMC has said that it will be taking care of the vaccination drive on its own and no third party will be involved. This will help the BMC curb the chances of black marketing of the vaccine.
vaccine
Kakani further said 500 teams of 5 people each, consisting of 1 person to first get details of the recipient, 1 to administer the vaccine, 2 support staff and 1 security personnel, would be deployed. In total, there would be 2,500 people giving vaccine to lakhs in Mumbai.
The BMC has identified the manpower for the purpose of vaccine distribution and these people will be getting advanced training in the next few days.
The municipal body will set up 8 vaccination center for healthcare workers, which will include 4 medical college hospitals and 4 peripheral hospitals, two each eastern and western suburbs. The mode of transportation for transfer of vaccines and for people has also been planned.
The vaccine will be given in three phases. In the first phase, 1.25 lakh healthcare workers will be vaccinated. The BMC aims to finish vaccinating these people in 10 to 15 days. After about 21 to 28 days, this set of people would be given the second dose.
In the second phase, people associated with police service, transportation and conservancy workers would be given the vaccine. In this phase, people associated with the fight against COVID-19 directly or indirectly, all of them will be vaccinated.
In the third and last phase, people above 50 years of age and have comorbidity will be given.
The BMC has the capacity to store up to 1.5-2 lakh vaccines in four medical colleges. Also, a 5-storey building has been taken up at Kanjur Marg for permanent storage. Out of which three floors will be used as cold storage.
According to Kakani, the BMC has been informed that they will be getting two different types of vaccines from Central and State government. The first vaccine will require a temperature range of -2 to -8 while the second will require a temperature of -15 to -25 and accordingly BMC is preparing for storage.
The municipal body has 300 cold chain boxes which will hold the same temperature as is needed to store the vaccine in cold storage. This will help in transportation of vaccines from storage to hospitals.
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