new delhi at least 25 per cent of the vaccines go waste even before reaching the doctors and patients while many lose their efficacy by the time they are administered due to lack of quality supply chain and logistics management systemthis is posing a major challenge for the government as well as public health agencies working to expand the immunisation coverage mainly in the hinterland where supply chain logistics and infrastructure are in poor shapemost vaccines are heat sensitive and remain potent between 2 degree celsius and 8 degree celsius thus maintaining a cold chain becomes critical to their efficacyaccording to the immunisation technical support unit under the health ministry the wastage differs for each vaccine but the supply of vaccines is computed by 25 per cent wastage rate for all vaccines except bcg which records the maximum wastage of over 50 per cent the wastage rate also varies across states depending on infrastructure and cold storage capacity the itsu assessment has also been verified by various other agencies including the world health organisation and other un agencies advocating better supply chain and cold storage managementto address the issue the health ministry is now taking its immunisation drive a step further to add more cold chains and better manage the supply chain under its universal immunisation programme the worlds largest vaccination drive the ministry has planned over 27000 cold chain points for storing and distributing vaccines besides the ministry is also planning to strengthen the system by rolling out a real time electronic vaccine intelligence network which will enable vaccine stock management as well as monitoring of cold chain temperature using mobile technologya critical component of immunisation programme is the vaccine supply chain and cold chain which play a key role in keeping vaccines safe and efficacious from the stage of manufacture to eventual delivery to the patient an official with the national cold chain vaccine management resource centre saidwatch 25 of vaccines go waste due to lack of cold chain