Mumbai Airport Set to Assign A Task Force For Transporting and Managing COVID-19 Vaccine

A task force has been set up at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport to manage the distribution and vaccination in Maharashtra. The team will handle the cargo and ensure smooth transportation along with a 24-hour helpline.

Mumbai Airport is India’s largest gateway for pharmaceutical import and export. Reportedly, it has been equipped with Asia’s largest temperature-controlled export pharmaceutical excellence center. Besides being in constant touch with Serum Institute to track the development of the COVID-19 vaccine,  the government has geared up to facilitate the shipment and distribution of the same.

The facilitation entails collaborating and performing advance planning between the airport and stakeholders, to effectively manage the upcoming COVID-19 vaccine. This chain would include airline clients, supply chain partners, regulatory and governmental bodies, and vaccine distributors.

At a meeting held with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray informed about the task force been formed by the state - to ensure timely distribution of the upcoming COVID-19 vaccine and for the proper execution of the vaccination program.

Cold Chain for Efficient Movement of COVID-19 Vaccine

The Maharashtra government has made a decision for doing a special arrangement at Mumbai Airport to ensure that the import and export of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine are smooth. The 24-hour customer service facility will ensure the status updates and pre-alerts for all the COVID-19 vaccine consignments and will also deal with the queries. Also, the authorities have made flexible slots available for ad hoc charter operations to ensure hassle-free facilitation of storage and transportation of the vaccine.

A cold chain will be formed for the proper movement of the coronavirus vaccine from the manufacturing facility to the end distributor. The assigned task force will be responsible for taking care of the temperature and dwell time with special approval from the regulatory bodies. 

COVID-19 Vaccine in India

As of now, there are three coronavirus vaccine candidates leading the race on a global level. These are - Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, Zydus Cadila’s ZyCoV-D, and Serum Institute of India’s Covishield (which is being prepared in partnership with Oxford University and AstraZeneca).

While Bharat Biotech and ICMR’s Covaxin has successfully cleared phase one and phase two trials with phase three trials (on humans) are underway, Serum Institute of India’s Covishield is currently in phase three trials and the interim data shows that this vaccine has about 90% efficacy.

Thus, the vaccine preparations are in full swing. However, the result will be visible only in the coming days.