Dry run for Covid-19 vaccine drive across country today

As an Indian regulatory expert panel on Friday recommended emergency use authorisation of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, all the states are set to undertake a dry run on Saturday so that they can sort out possible logistical challenges before the vaccine is rolled out commercially.

The decision to conduct the dry run at every state capital was taken on Thursday at a high-level meeting to review the states’ preparedness as the government geared up for a never-done-before exercise to vaccinate 30 crore Indians over the next few months.

Also read: Expert panel approves Serum Institute's Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use

Each state will undertake the mock vaccination drive at three camps and at each site 25 front-line volunteers would be given the shot. Their data will be uploaded on the Co-WIN application platform that would serve as the digital front of the entire campaign.

Each site will be a three-room set-up with adequate space outside to generate awareness on Covid-19.

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While most of the states will do the dry run at the state capitals, Maharashtra and Kerala are likely to schedule the dry run in major cities other than their capital.

The dry run, according to the ministry, will equip the State and UT administration to manage vaccine supply, storage, and logistics including cold chain management.

An important focus of the dry run will be on the management of any possible adverse events following immunisation. In addition, the emphasis would be given on the adherence and management of infection control practices at the session site, to prevent disease transmission.

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The first round of the dry run was conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, and Punjab on December 28-29th in two districts each, where five-session sites with 25 beneficiaries each were identified. No major operational issues were observed in that exercise.

For the vaccination, nearly 60,000 vaccinators have been trained so far, out of 2,360 persons were trained at the national level training of trainers whereas another 57,000 injection-givers received district level training in 719 districts. The aim is to train 96,000 vaccinators for the entire exercise.