By Shalini Bhardwaj

New Delhi [India], March 26 (ANI): Dr Renu Shehrawat, Course Coordinator at the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW), highlighted the significant role of the National Cold Chain and Vaccine Management Resource Centre (NCCVMRC) in ensuring effective vaccine management systems both within India and internationally.

Speaking with ANI Shehrawat, said that NCCVMRC is not only supporting effective vaccine management but also training other countries.

She stated, 'We are not only supporting our country, but we are also facilitating the trainings or effective vaccine management program of other countries, like recently, our team went to South African country of Malawi and helped them to assess their effective vaccine management systems, and provided them with the feedback so that they can make it better.'

She added, 'So, we are even hand holding the countries, because we have a very robust, cold chain and vaccine management system in our country.'

NIHFW has a very important wing, which is called National cold chain and vaccine management resource center, (NCCVMRC).

'It is a very unique institution which has the mandate of training capacity building in ensuring the cold chain points all over the country. Because when we talk of vaccines, all health professional know how important is to maintain that particular temperature right from the manufacturing process till the vaccine is administered to the beneficiary. So a lot of equipment are involved. Lot of personnel are involved. And this equipment cannot be left unattended. If some fault happens, they cannot be left unattended. So we train nationally all the people who manage the vaccine cold chain in the government health sector.'

'So they are imparted training in repair and maintenance of all these equipment, whether you talk of very big equipment, like walk in freezers, walk in coolers, whether solar equipment, or electrical equipment. So there are so many equipment involved in this cold chain process,' She explained regarding the maintenance of cold chain equipment.

During emergency situation if repair is required or equipemnt is not functioning then another national team technicians handles the situation.

She states, 'We have a national pool of trainers. If they are unable to manage we quickly send that particular technician. So through the national pool of technicians, we take care that the equipment is functioning within the period for which it is allowed to it's usually 24 hours, 48 hours, sometimes even less.'

The centre also maintains a database of how these cold chain points are functioning.

'Where the equipment is not functioning, for how many hours it is not functioning, and if it is not functioning, we take a response based on that data and get that equipment functioning by helping the persons who have to maintain,' She said (ANI)