GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo (GHAC) has become a crucial COVID vaccine handling centre with its temperature-sensitive cargo faciility.
A World Health Organisation (WHO) Good Storage and Distribution Practices certified major gateway location in India, GHAC is equipped to serve outbound and inbound vaccine shipments with requisite temperature-controlled zones.
In order to address the anticipated surge in movement of vaccines at Hyderabad, Telangana, GHAC has been expanding its landside and airside facilities and streamlining processes to meet the unique requirements for vaccine shipments and temp-controlled pharmaceuticals.
The existing pharma zone facility is also being expanded to almost double the area for handling increased movements of vaccines and pharma shipments.
In addition, it has also increased capacities of all temperature zones, viz 15-250C, 2-80C and -200C.
The Hyderabad region is set to be the single largest concentration of COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing capacities globally, with an estimated 3.6 billion doses of various makes of vaccines expected to be produced by facilities in the region over the next 18-24 months.
From January 2021, GHAC has handled more than 100 tonnes of COVID vaccines that were distributed from Hyderabad to various parts of the country.
GHAC introduced ‘Cold Super Store’ as part of the extended pharma zone to mitigate any temperature excursions during unloading of pharma shipments. It had launched a custom-built large cool dolly, a mobile refrigerated unit for airside transportation of large pallets till aircraft, maintaining the cold-chain.
The cargo handler has also partnered with Dubai Airports for launch of ‘HYDXB-VAXCOR’, to address the unique logistical challenge of moving vaccines between Dubai and India through Hyderabad airport as a hub.
GHAC is gearing up towards technology enhancements and has been recently integrating vaccine ledger, a next-gen Blockchain solution to deliver enhanced track-and-trace solution and real-time monitoring of vaccine shipments from Hyderabad.
