Get ready to give up your favourite ice cream and frozen desserts for a while. That would be the price you may have to pay for a Covid-19 vaccine.
While the whole world is breath lessly following every single development on the vaccine front, less noticed, though equally crucial, is the ecosystem needed to bring the vaccines from the lab to your arm. Ranging from the immediate requirement of crores of vials, syringes and needles to refrigeration, storage, transportation and delivery of the doses to every citizen, this health emergency is spawning a business potential that even early conservative estimates put at thousands of crores of rupees.
Storing and transporting the vaccine at the requisite temperature would be the most daunting task for India. One solution, as the head of a leading refrigeration company suggests, is drafting in “the cold storage facilities of the likes of Mother Dairy and Amul, and at all the supermarkets.”
The good news is that India already has a Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) in place, which could be used for vaccine delivery. And, the bad news? It is not equipped to handle a vaccination programme of this scale. “Planes, trucks, warehouses and health centres all will have to be outfitted with freezers for the required temperature along with power backups. It’s a gigantic task ahead!” said Balbirsingh Khalsa, national director (industrial & logistics) of the property consultant Knight Frank India.
This story is from the December 13, 2020 edition of THE WEEK.
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This story is from the December 13, 2020 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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