The ward health clinics run by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation will be used as sites to administer Covid vaccines in Calcutta, officials of the civic body have said.

The CMC’s experience in administering vaccines under the universal immunisation programme is the reason why it has been chosen to distribute and administer Covid vaccines in the Calcutta municipal area, the officials said.

Vaccines against diseases like tetanus, measles, diphtheria and diarrhoea — which are available under the universal immunisation programme - are administered in each of the 144 ward health clinics of the CMC.

“The Calcutta Municipal Corporation will act as the nodal agency to distribute and administer Covid vaccines in Calcutta. They have a ready cold chain storage network, which will be of help,” said Ajay Chakraborty, the director of health services of the state government.

Sources in the CMC said that the majority of the health clinics have cold chain storage for vaccines. “All the vaccines available under the universal immunisation programme are kept in our cold chain storage, which is available in most ward clinics. We have deep freezers and ice lined refrigerators (ILR), where the vaccines and ice packs, which are required to keep vaccines in proper condition when they are taken out of refrigerators, are both stored,” said an official.

According to the official, ILRs are used to keep the vaccines and deep freezers are used to prepare ice packs.

An official of the CMC said the temperature range in ILRs is 2 degrees Celsius to 8 degrees Celsius. The temperature in deep freezers can be as low as zero degrees. Cold storage temperature for routine immunisation vaccines is typically 2 to 8 degrees Celsius.

“The two vaccines that have the greatest possibility to get approval from the Drugs Controller General of India can be stored in the existing cold storage facility. If any other vaccine, which may require very low temperatures for storage, is approved later, new storage facilities have to be created,” said a CMC official.

“Each ward has three or four vaccinators who administer vaccines to children. The health department is training them in administering Covid vaccines. We are also trying to increase the number of vaccinators in each ward so there is no shortage of vaccinators,” said an official of the CMC.

Chakraborty said there would not be any need to increase cold storage points in the city immediately. “We are going to vaccinate doctors and other health-care workers in the first phase. Then we will vaccinate other frontline workers. There is enough cold chain storage capacity in the city to store vaccines for health-care and frontline workers. The central medical store in Bagbazar, the cold storage points in hospitals and those of the CMC will be adequate for the initial phase,” he said.

“We will need larger cold storage facilities only if the entire population of the city has to be vaccinated within a very short time. That seems un-likely.”

However, the state health department has also asked the CMC to keep additional cold storage points in each of the 16 boroughs. “Each borough has identified one or two additional points that can be used as cold store points. We need to have a space where deep freezers and ice lined refrigerators (ILR) that are used to store vaccines can be kept,” said an official of the CMC’s health department.

“We have had several webinars with health department officials in the past one month where details about administering the vaccines were discussed.”

The Covid-19 Vaccines Operational Guidelines, issued by the Union ministry of health that was last updated on December 28, mentioned that frontline workers, health-care workers and those above 50 years on January 1, 2021, will get the vaccine in the first phase.

“The priority group of above 50 years may be further subdivided into those above 60 years of age and those between 50 and 60 years of age for the phasing of roll-out based on pandemic situation and vaccine availability,” the guidelines state.

The guidelines mentioned that those below 50 years but with comorbid conditions will also get the vaccine in phase I. Only 100 people will be vaccinated at each centre in each session, said the guidelines.

While vaccines under the universal immunisation programme are given to anyone who walks into a clinic, Covid vaccines will be given to only pre-registered beneficiaries. “Names of people who are scheduled to receive vaccines on a day will be available in an app called Co-Win. We will administer vaccines to only those whose names are with us,” said the CMC official.