Kolkata: Vodafone Idea (Vi) is in talks with top Covid-19 vaccine makers, including Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech, to offer a host of IoT solutions and sensors for digital tracking of vaccine supply chains in real-time and even monitoring the temperature of millions of doses of such vaccines in transit.
Such end-to-end monitoring will start the minute a vaccine consignment leaves a producer’s factory bound for an inoculation hub, including storage time at cold chains across India. Vi’s enterprise business unit has developed the IoT solutions and vaccine temperature sensors.
“Vi Business is engaged with vaccine makers, pharma companies, air/road transport operators and logistics players to deploy its IoT solutions for supply chain visibility of cold chains, monitoring and managing logistics,” a Vi spokesperson told ET. Vi though did not name the vaccine makers it is engaged with.
A senior company executive added that “Vi is testing its IoT solutions for multiple use cases such as supply chain tracking to temperature monitoring of vaccines-in-transit”. These solutions, he said, will power the temperature sensors installed on cold storage devices in several states to support India’s massive Covid-19 vaccination drive.
An SII spokesman said the vaccine maker won’t offer comment.
Vi’s vaccine supply chain trackers, temperature sensors and logistics management tools will soon be sold commercially to vaccine makers, cold chains, logistics companies and air cargo operators.
The big telcos are beefing up broadband connectivity at key vaccination sites to enable healthcare workers and medical teams perform related administration work effectively to support the government’s massive vaccination drive that got underway on January 16.
Another Big 3 telco executive said “the company is awaiting directions to help in circle-wise dissemination of vaccination-related information to customers on their mobiles via text messages”.
At press time, Bharat Biotech, Jio and Airtel did not reply to ET’s queries.
Telcos are also in talks to offer reliable internet connectivity to top vaccine makers and pharma companies to ensure the latter manage their business-critical functions effectively during the national vaccination drive.
“Telecom operators remain committed to support the government’s efforts to keep India safe from the virus, and they will provide connectivity support and technology-based solutions to ensure the vaccination drive is successful,” said S P Kochhar, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vi.
Telcos are also awaiting directions from the government on ways to make the Co-WIN mobile app more effective as a mass Covid vaccination delivery mechanism. The health ministry recently said that the Co-WIN digital platform would be used for Covid-19 vaccine delivery nationally, following which all relevant data is being uploaded on the mobile app.
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