Apollo Hosps gears up to administer 1m vaccine doses per day

Hyderabad: Even as over a 100 Covid-19 vaccine candidates are in various phases of development globally, healthcare major

Apollo Hospitals

is working to build infrastructure for administering a million doses of coronavirus vaccines per day.

“The group has been investing in ramping up the cold chain infrastructure at its network of 19 medicine supply hubs, 70 hospitals, over 400 clinics, 500 corporate health centres and 4000 pharmacies across the country,” Apollo Group of Hospitals executive vice-chairman Shobana Kamineni said during a virtual meet on Thursday.

Apollo Hospitals is also training over 10,000 employees, including doctors, nurses and pharmacists, to administer the vaccine at Apollo centres, she said, adding that while around 7,000 have already been trained, the remaining 3,000 are undergoing training so that they can administer the vaccine safely and accurately. She said pharmacists being trained will get certification so that they can administer the vaccine.

Here she pointed out that nearly 30% of India is roughly 30 minutes away from an Apollo pharmacy, which can guarantee safe and widespread reach of the vaccine, if required.

“As the country awaits a vaccine for the deadly infectious disease, one of the major challenges will be around safe and orderly delivery of doses for 1.3 billion Indians. Apollo Hospitals has been strengthening its vaccine cold chain for supply and gearing up all Apollo facilities for efficient and fast administration up to 1 million doses per day with the highest safety standards,” she said.