Covid 19 vaccination in India: How Mumbai Airport has become one of central points for vaccine delivery

Covid 19 vaccination in India update: As India begins the Covid 19 vaccine transportation process, Mumbai Airport (BOM) has become one of the central points. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) in Mumbai has become one of the pivotal airports in the country from where airlines are delivering 2,72,400 doses of Covid-19 vaccine to several destinations across India on Wednesday. The Covid-19 vaccines – Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin – are being transported to states and Union Territories. The Covid vaccination in India is scheduled to begin on January 16.

Mumbai airport is facilitating the distribution of a total of 227 boxes, containing approximately 2,72,400 doses of the vaccine today. These are being delivered to Goa, Bagdogra, Rajkot, Ranchi, Imphal, Agartala, Cochin, Bhopal, Kanpur, Jammu, Srinagar, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Gorakhpur, Raipur, Dehradun, Varanasi, Indore, Trivandrum, and Jabalpur through SpiceJet, IndiGo, GoAir, and Vistara. Of these, Raipur and Cochin emerged as the destinations with the largest vaccine deliveries of 27 and 25 boxes respectively.

The first vaccine shipment departed from the airport at 5:20 AM to Go a through GoAir carrying 2 boxes of the vaccine followed by the shipment to Rajkot at 6:00 AM through SpiceJet carrying 7 boxes.

Why Mumbai Airport?

The Standard operating procedures (SOPs) implemented by the airport authority in anticipation of the vaccine distribution saw the terminal register a cargo processing time of just 7 minutes, right from goods acceptance to dispatch at the ramp, the CSMIA authority said.

Mumbai airport has deployed a dedicated COVID-task force in order to reduce dwell time and facilitate advanced planning and collaboration between the airport and all stakeholders in this process – the airline customers, supply chain partners, regulatory and governmental bodies, and vaccine distributors. It has also initiated a full-time 24×7 Customer Service Cell for COVID-19 vaccine EXIM consignments, in order to address customer queries, pre-alerts and status updates, CSMIA said in a statement.

Mumbai airport is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities such as Asia’s largest temperature-controlled Export Pharma Excellence Centre. It also has Pharma-dedicated Import Cold Zone, a first-of-its-kind, ‘Cooltainer’ facility. Mumbai Airport is also the largest hub for envirotainer movements with over 60 power outlets for processing pharma active containers. Additionally, it has an exclusive station dealing with storage and maintenance of both e-type, and t-type active containers that help facilitate the seamless distribution of vaccines across India, CSMIA stated.