The state health department has identified the warehouses of two central medical stores in Bagbazar that could be a hub for storing Covid-19 vaccines in Bengal once the inoculation process starts.

Infrastructure, including new electric connections and space for accommodating large walk-in coolers as part of the cold chain system, is being strengthened at the central medical store and the central family welfare store in north Calcutta, under the directorate of health services.

There are nine deep freezers at the stores in Bagbazar and additional space is being culled out for more “vertical refrigerators” which are not meant for domestic use.

The state government would be shortly receiving 19 walk-in coolers, each with around 2,000 square feet capacity, for storing the vaccine packs, from the Union ministry of health and family welfare. A bulk of these coolers will be kept at the two warehouses and a few will be sent to the districts.

Primarily, arrangements are being made for storing the vaccine-packs at a temperature ranging between two and eight degrees Celsius, with a provision for bringing the temperature down to as low as minus 20 degrees in these coolers.

Senior officials said they were yet to receive guidelines from the health ministry on the desired temperature for storing the vials.

“The idea is to increase the capacity of storing dosages from the existing 3.5 crore dosages to around six crore,” said a senior official of the health department.

As part of the preparation for the proposed roll out of the Covid-19 vaccine, the health department has already started training key personnel who will then train vaccinators across districts.

There are around 20,000 vaccinators in Bengal and a programme for the trainers was held at an EM Bypass address on Friday.

The next one will be held in Siliguri for north Bengal shortly.

“A key element of the cold chain system is ‘cold chain points’. There are 941 cold chain points across the state. In Calcutta, we would be adding several hospitals apart from the medical college and hospitals in this system,” said a senior official of the health department overseeing the preparations for storing vaccines.

“We will use the facilities of health units across 16 boroughs under the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. Since the vaccination would be done in phases, there shouldn’t be any problem,” the official said.

Since end-October, when the state government started collecting details of health care workers in private and government health establishments for administering the Covid-19 vaccine on priority basis, the health department received close to six lakh applications.

Senior officials said they expect the figure to go by around 50,000.

“The mission director of the Nation Health Mission is the director of this programme and will prepare the final list of healthcare workers in Bengal,” the official said.