Curious case of ‘frozen’ COVID vaccines in Assam hospital

GUWAHATI:

Assam authorities are planning to initiate a thorough inquiry into a rather “strange” case of how 1000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine got “frozen” at Silchar Medical College and Hospital (SMCH), hours after they were stored at the hospital.

Sources informed that the State Health and Family Welfare department, Cachar had sent the vaccines to SMCH on Friday night for the vaccination drive in the district which began on Saturday.

However, 1000 doses of the vaccine were found to be in a frozen state on Saturday morning.

National Health Mission (NHM) Assam director, S. Lakshmanan said the matter would be inquired thoroughly and action would be taken as needed.

“The authorities concerned have been asked to send the (frozen) vaccines to Dispur,” Lakshmanan said.

According to the guidelines, vaccines should be kept at a temperature of two to eight degrees Celsius, whereas they were stored at “minus 14 degree Celsius as a result of which the vaccines were frozen”, the sources said.

Meanwhile, a show-cause notice has been served to the Additional Chief Medical and Health Officer of Silchar civil hospital, P.K Roy and a few others entrusted with the responsibility of properly storing the vaccines.

(Edited by Iban Mawrie)

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