More than 11000 units of vaccine refrigerators and deep freezers to be deployed pan India over next six months
Winning a tender worth Rs. 95 crore to supplement the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare’s healthcare cold chain for the country’s Universal Immunisation Programme, Godrej Appliances will commission 11856 units of vaccine refrigerators and deep freezers across 22 state depots over the next six months.
These will be commissioned at numerous government hospitals, district hospitals and health centers strengthening the cold chain and includes 8767 units of ice-lined medical refrigerators and 3089 units of horizontal deep freezers. As per a release, Godrej medical freezers with D-cool Technology use D-shaped Copper Refrigerating Tube for more surface contact and large heat exchange area for delivering high refrigeration efficiency. It provides precision cooling at -20 °C.
Speaking about the specifications of the equipment, Kamal Nandi, Business Head and Executive Vice President, Godrej Appliances said, “Our Godrej medical refrigerators are equipped to deliver a precision cooling of 4°C at all times despite power cuts and is at par with international quality standards, with performance that outclasses most other ILRs. Like all Godrej appliances, these are eco-friendly and use 100% CFC, HFC and HCFC free R600A and world’s greenest R290 refrigerant, helping deliver maximum energy-efficiency and ensuring that these don’t harm our environment.”
Expanding on the critical need for maintaining the cold chain for vaccines, Jaishankar Natarajan, Associate Vice President and New Business Development, Godrej Appliances added, “Vaccines exposed to either more than 8°C or less than 2°C lose potency and this results in significant losses both in human terms – the end-user does not get proper immunisation and economic –government has to discard costly vaccines at zero salvage value. A Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) report indicated a lack of adequate power supply (from extended/frequent power failures) as one of the key challenges for last-mile immunisation infrastructure in India.”
According to Natarajan, the Godrej range of technologically advanced medical refrigerators and freezers help maintain the ideal temperature for vaccines even at an ambient temperature of 43 °C and despite power cuts, making it a perfect companion for such vaccine outreach programmes to provide last mile immunisation.