Probe ordered as 1000 doses of Covishield found frozen in Assam Medical College

As many as 1,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine were found in frozen condition at the Silchar Medical College and Hospital (SMCH) on Wednesday. As per the hospital official, a technical fault in the storage unit would lead to the situation.

Silchar: The Assam government has ordered an inquiry after 100 vials of Covishield vaccine containing 1,000 doses were found frozen at the Silchar Medical College and Hospital (SMCH) at Silchar in Assam's Barak Valley on Wednesday.

The incident came to the fore recently when the staff of the hospital found the vaccines frozen at the storage unit of the Medical College.

"The government has ordered an inquiry to ascertain if there were any lapses on our part. The probe will try to ascertain if the vaccines went frozen while being transported to the hospital or at the storage unit of the hospital," said a senior official of the Assam health department.

"We have also sent the entire batch of vaccines to the laboratory to ascertain if they can be used or wasted already," the senior official said.

"The COVID- 19 vaccines are new to everyone. We do not know as of now if it is wasted, so we are going to wait till the report from the laboratory," he added.

Officials of the medical college said that it is probably some technical fault with the Ice Lined Refrigerator (ILR) machines that led to the freezing of the vaccines.

While speaking to ETV Bharat, a doctor at SMCH hospital said, "When we took the vaccines from the cold chain box, we found that the vaccines were partially frozen. We got to know that there is some fault. We later found that probably it is a technical fault of the ILR machine. As per the norm, the temperature of the ILR machines should be between +2 to +8. Normally when the temperature of the ILR machine drops, the vaccinator gets an alert on the mobile phone. However, the vaccinator did not receive any alert. SO there is a technical problem with the ILR machine."

"There were 100 vials which means 1,000 doses. We have kept it separately for testing in the laboratory to ascertain if those were damaged or not. As of now, we do not see any lapse on our part, so probably it is a technical fault that led to the freezing of the vaccines", added an SMCH doctor.