Prayagraj receives 26,000 Covishield doses, 13 ILRs

The district health department has received 13 more ice lined refrigerators for keeping the vaccines safe

PRAYAGRAJ: Second batch of around 26,000 doses of Covishield, the Covid-19 vaccine, arrived from Varanasi by road for Prayagraj district on Sunday afternoon.

“The vaccines have been stored at the specially constructed vaccine storage facility equipped with Ice Lined Refrigerators (ILRs) set up at Tej Bahadur Sapru (Beli) Hospital,” said Dr Rahul Singh, district nodal officer for Covid-19 vaccination.

On January 13, the district had received the first batch of around 32,150 doses of Covishield vaccine from Varanasi. The transportation was done in a vaccine transportation van along with an escort police vehicle.

The district health department has received 13 additional ILRs for keeping the vaccines safe.

“These also have been installed at the vaccine storage facility set up at Tej Bahadur Sapru (Beli) Hospital and with this now a total of 16 ILRs are available for storing the vaccines at the recommended temperature of 2 degree Celsius to 8 degree Celsius,” Dr Singh said.

In the two rounds of vaccinations held in the district on January 16 and January 22, against the target of 5600, only 3546 health workers (425 on first day and 3121 on second day) could be vaccinated.

The district has around 26,000 health workers who are to be administered the vaccine in phase 1.

With January 28 and January 29 earmarked for the next rounds of vaccination and one marked as reserve day, the officials face the challenge of vaccinating over 22,000 health workers in these three days. “They need to average over 7,000 vaccinations per day if the target is to be met fully,” officials admitted.