COVID-19 vaccination dry-run in all states on Jan 2; Centre orders 85 crore syringes

The Centre will conduct a dry run of the COVID-19 vaccination drive in all states across the country on January 2. Along with it, the government has placed orders for procurement of nearly 83 crore syringes. Additionally, bids have also been invited for nearly 35 crore syringes. "These will be used for COVID-19 vaccination and also for the Universal Immunization Programme," the government said.

This comes after a two-day dry run to assess the readiness of the mechanism laid out for the COVID-19 immunisation drive, which is expected to begin soon, was successfully conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Assam. According to the Union Health Ministry, the end-to-end exercise was undertaken in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, Rajkot and Gandhinagar of Gujarat, Ludhiana and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar of Punjab, and Sonitpur and Nalbari districts of Assam on Monday and Tuesday.

COVID National Vaccine Dry Run by Republic World on Scribd

Two-day Covid vaccine dry run concludes smoothly

Specific teams were formed for various tasks by the district administrations and activities like uploading of dummy beneficiary data, session site creation, vaccine allocation, communicating vaccination details to beneficiaries and vaccinators, and beneficiary mobilization were carried out, the Health Ministry said.

Field feedback on the first day of dry run was reviewed on December 29 through video conferencing with state and district programme officers by the joint secretary (Public Health). "All the states expressed satisfaction in terms of operational approach and use of IT platform to ensure transparency and effective monitoring of vaccination processes expected to cover a large number of people across the country.

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"Additional suggestions on IT platform were also noted for further enhancement of Co-WIN platform. Detailed insights and feedback obtained will help enrich the operational guidelines and IT platform, and will strengthen the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out plan," the ministry said.

The exercise tested the COVID-19 vaccination process, including planning and preparations according to operational guidelines; creation of facilities and users on Co-WIN application, session site creation and mapping of sites, uploading healthcare workers data, receipt of vaccines and their allocation by districts, session planning, deployment of vaccination team, logistics mobilisation at session sites, mock drill of conducting the drive, and reporting and review meetings at the block, district and state levels. The objective of the dry run was also to undertake and confirm field implementation of the Co-WIN and guide the way forward prior to its implementation.

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(With PTI inputs)