Second nationwide dry run of Covid-19 vaccination drive to be held today

The second nationwide dry run on the Covid 19 vaccination will be held today. The massive mock drill will be held in 736 districts across 33 States and Union Territories. The objective of this dry run is to simulate the actual vaccine administration event.

The entire planning of the vaccination drive, including beneficiary registration, microplanning and vaccination at the planned session site, will be tested under the leadership of District Collector or District Magistrate.

The dry run will also familiarize the State, District, Block and Hospital level officers on all aspects of COVID-19 roll out. sources reports that around 1 lakh 70 thousand vaccinators and three lakh vaccination team members have been trained on the process to be followed at the vaccination sites.

The country’s drugs regulator has approved Covishield and Covaxin for restricted emergency use in the country. The first round of dry run was held across the country on 2nd of January.

The exercise is being done to ensure efficient planning and management for vaccine delivery in each district. The second dry run will be held in 736 districts across 33 States and Union Territories except Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Each district will identify three types of session sites, similar to the previous dry run including a public health facility, private health facility and rural or urban outreach sites.

As the country prepares for the COVID-19 vaccine roll out, Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan will be visiting Tamil Nadu today to personally review the preparedness and oversee the dry run operations at the scheduled sites.

The Health Minister will visit the session sites at Government General Hospital and Government Omandurar Hospital in Chennai this morning. Later in the day, Dr Harsh Vardhan will visit the private vaccination centre at Apollo Hospital in Chennai after a brief visit to the General Medical Store Depot (GMSD) in Periamedu.

This is one of the four national vaccine storage facilities and the other three are located at Mumbai, Kolkata and Karnal. The Union Health Minister will also visit the vaccination centre at Chengalpattu. He will also be visiting the Hindustan Bio-Tech Ltd. Campus at Chengalpattu after concluding his supervision at these sites.

Yesterday, Dr Harsh Vardhan interacted with the Health Ministers and Principal Secretaries of the States and Union Territories through video conferencing to review the preparedness for the dry run.

The Union Health Minister appreciated the tireless efforts being made by the multiple stakeholders including the Central and State government officials and the medical community. He also expressed gratitude to the scientific community who have worked tirelessly for the two vaccines which have recently received the Emergency Use Authorization.

The Health Minister highlighted the unique digital platform, Co-WIN, repurposed from the e-VIN platform that will provide real time information of vaccine stocks, their storage temperature and individualized tracking of beneficiaries of the COVID-19 vaccine. He stated that more than 78 lakh beneficiaries have been already registered on the platform.

The Minister reassured all his State counterparts that the country’s cold chain infrastructure has been sufficiently upgraded to ensure last mile delivery and that adequate supplies of syringes and other logistics have also been provided for. Dr Harsh Vardhan requested the Health Ministers to be vigilant against rumours and disinformation campaigns regarding the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. He rubbished the rumours being propagated on social media which are raising doubts in the mind of the public regarding the vaccine side-effects.