Karnataka on Tuesday finally received its first consignment of the COVID-19 vaccine. The consignment comprising 54 boxes of 6.47 lakh doses of Covishield vaccine reached Bengaluru airport at 11.40 a.m.
The vaccine consignment weighing 1,728 kg was received by a team of officials comprising Bengaluru Urban District Health Officer (DHO) Srinivas Golur and other Health Department officials in charge of the State vaccine store in Bengaluru. The consignment was then transported to the State vaccine store on the premises of the Health Department’s old building near Anand Rao Circle in a vaccine van.
Health and Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar said although the State was expecting 11.34 lakh doses in the first consignment, it is getting 7.95 lakh doses as of now. “The remaining will arrive soon and we will inform the people of the State about it shortly,” he said. He said the vaccine will be first administered to the registered 6.6 lakh healthcare workers apart from other frontline workers from the Police, Revenue, RDPR Departments and municipal corporations.
Each dose of vaccine is 0.5 ml and each vial contains 10 doses of vaccines. The second dose should be given 28 days after the first dose and immunogenicity will develop after 45 days, he said adding that ‘Not for sale’ is being written on the vial to avoid misuse.
Arundathi Chandrashekar, Mission Director, National Health Mission, said the process of distributing the vaccine to districts will begin from Wednesday. “We had worked out the allocation assuming that the State will receive 11.34 lakh doses as told earlier. However, as the number of doses sent in the first consignment is lesser, the allocation is being reworked for equitable distribution to the districts. We will start distribution from Wednesday,” she added.
Storage, transportation
Although vaccines usually have a shelf life of six months to one year, the current stock has a shelf life of four and half months till May end.
Vaccines were transported in 54 boxes to the State vaccine store in a van. State Deputy Director (Immunisation) Rajani Nageshrao told The Hindu that there is no need to transport the stocks in refrigerated trucks as each box has frozen ice packs that maintain optimal temperature for long.
“At the store we have kept the vaccines in the walk-in-cooler where a temperature of +2 to +8°C will be maintained throughout. While distributing,we again pack with fresh frozen ice packs and send it to districts,” she said.
