It is the second day of the vaccination dry run in four states where necessary infrastructure and processes are being tested before the expected rollout of Covid-19 vaccine in January.
The two-day end-to-end dry run is being carried out in Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh, Rajkot and Gandhinagar in Gujarat, Ludhiana and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (Nawanshahr) in Punjab and Sonitpur and Nalbari districts in Assam.
While Monday’s exercise included mock registration of volunteers, officials said that Tuesday is when they will be called for the vaccination drill.
District Immunisation Officer of Nawanshahr, Dr Davinder Dhanda, said that each centre has a waiting area, an injection room, and an observation room where the person undergoing “dummy vaccination” on Tuesday during the dry run would be kept for half an hour.
Prior to the dry run, a special training workshop of personnel was held on Monday. Yesterday’s exercise also tested the functionality of Co-WIN, an online platform for monitoring the delivery of Covid-19 vaccine, deployment of team members, checking cold storage, transportation arrangements and other arrangements while following all necessary protocols.
The dry run was being carried out in five locations with 25 test beneficiaries (healthcare workers) for each session.
“We have recorded this in the Co-WIN App and sent SMSes to the chosen patients. We have monitored the time taken for different processes and the logistics involved. This will be used in real-time simulation,” Krishna district Collector A Md Imtiyaz told reporters.
Officials said that these SMSes will be treated as identity proof for patients’ entry into their allotted centres on Tuesday. Each centre is equipped with a team of five doctors.
A report on the dry run listing the issues involved will be submitted by the states to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare besides the State Task Force for necessary action.
The exercise comes at a time when drug regulators are expected any day to take a decision on giving emergency approvals to pave way for the first shots to be given. The country targets to deliver doses, likely to be in a regimen of two, to 300 million people by the summer – one of the largest logistical exercises to be undertaken outside of the elections.
