Several thousand doses of Covid-19 vaccines burnt to ashes on Saturday morning at a Community Health Centre (CHC) in Arki block of Khunti district after fire broke out at the cold storage room of the hospital due to suspected short circuit, police said.

The fire also damaged medicines worth several thousand rupees, sources said. However, no casualties were caused in the incident, and all the hospital staff members were safe, police said.

The healthcare workers deployed at the CHC managed to save at least 3000 Covid-19 vaccines from getting damaged and doused the fire with the help of locals, sources from the hospital added.

Khunti Superintendent of Police Ashutosh Shekhar said that the fire broke out early in the morning and burnt almost everything kept in the cold storage room of the CHC.

The police, he said, have asked the electricity department to inspect the site as the cause of fire seems to be a short circuit as of now. “Prima facie, it looks like an accident caused by a short circuit,” said Shekhar.

This is the first incident of fire breaking out at a Covid-19 vaccine store room in Jharkhand. In January this year, fire broke out at the Pune facility of vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India and caused at least five casualties. 

Covid-19 vaccines are usually stored at a temperature of 2 degrees Celsius to 8 degrees Celsius. According to sources in the health department, the electricity connection in all the vaccine storage points across Jharkhand were examined before the nationwide immunisation drive against Covid-19 was launched back on January 16.

Khunti Deputy Commissioner Shashi Ranjan could not be contacted for his remarks on Saturday. However, the officer in-charge of Arki Police Station, Pankaj Kumar said that the deputy commissioner has directed a probe into the matter.

“It is difficult to estimate the loss. Our team has inspected the site and spoken to the concerned hospital authorities to get an idea of the damage caused,” said Kumar.

While none of the hospital authorities were available for their comments on the incident, a source from Arki CHC said that there were limited staff members on duty when the fire broke out, but the few staff members on duty acted spontaneously and doused the fire with the help of some locals.