Covid vaccination drive: India well prepared to store, distribute vaccines

As the country initiates a mammoth vaccination drive, the government may have to overcome many hurdles to achieve its stated goal of vaccinating 300 million people in the first phase. But Covid-19 vaccine cold storage capacity and distribution is the least of its worries.

Apart from the existing government infrastructure, used for universal immunisation programme, underutilised capacities at private facilities will come in handy, according to stakeholders. Low cost of setting up a new cold storage facility has reduced the risk of supply overtaking storage capacities at remote places, they said.

India has about 29,000 cold chain points, 1.6 million shipper boxes, 76,000 cold chain equipment, 700 reefer vans and 55,000 cold chain handlers, with close to 2.5 million health care workers involved in its Covid vaccination network, estimates suggest. “Covishield, developed by the Serum Institute, is required to be stored in 2-8 degree Celsius. So, unlike the Pfizer vaccine that needs to be stored at -70 degree Celsius, Covishield can be stored in commonly found refrigerators. This is a big advantage,” said Kapil Bhatia, who heads the industrial cooling solutions business at Daikin.

Cooling majors like Daikin and Blue Star are already involved in setting up new vaccine storage units for government and private entities. Daikin, for example, has recently completed two such projects for the Northern Railways.  

With over 600 million vaccine doses in the pipeline for the first phase, a robust storage and distribution infrastructure will play a key role. And, this has been a key concern for the authorities. Four government medical store depots (GMSDs) located in Karnal (Haryana), Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata are the primary storage hubs that will procure vaccines from the manufacturers. Some 53 state storage points have been identified that will source the vaccines either from the GMSDs or directly from manufacturers. For the last-mile delivery, smaller storage points are being identified or set up at district levels.

“Almost every primary health centre, which is the smallest health care unit at the village level, have refrigerators. Vaccine storage units at block-level, operated by government and private players, can be easily tweaked to suit the temperature required for the Covid vaccines,” said a top executive from a leading air conditioning major.

Cold storage industry executives said that unlike storage facilities for fruits and vegetables, vaccines require much smaller units. “Even a 150 sq. ft unit can store thousands of vaccines. Moreover, these Puff panel units, with back up cooling unit, cost Rs 300,000-400,000. Given the lower level of investment involved in such projects, many local entrepreneurs have started setting up similar units in various locations,” said a senior industry executive at a cold storage developer.

According to market research firm IMARC Services, the increase in demand for cold storage solutions from pharma and other segments is expected to help grow the country's cold storage market by 17 per cent in 2021, taking the total market size to Rs 1.7 trillion. The estimated growth would come on a high base as between 2015 and 2020, the market has already reported a 16 per cent compound annual growth. Health care products account for 3.6 per cent of the overall cold storage market, but that is expected to grow two-third to around 6 per cent by end-2022.