Covid 19: Nationwide Vaccination Dry Run Today As India Gears Up For Launch | 10 Points

All states and Union Territories will conduct a dry run for Covid-19 vaccination today to test the planning and implementation. The activity is proposed to be conducted in all state capitals in at least 3 session sites.

(Representative Image/Getty)

As the country awaits the Coronavirus vaccine, India is all set to begin a mock drill of the Covid-19 vaccination drive across all states and Union Territories on Saturday. The drive will assess its ability and readiness to administer shots to hundreds of millions of people by testing the preparedness for the vaccine rollout. The government has already successfully conducted a two-day pilot Covid-19 vaccination drive in eight districts in four states on December 28-29, but Saturday’s dry run is more ambitious in scope, covering all state capitals, with some states also testing the process’ efficiency in districts located in remote corners of the country.

Here are some key points for today's vaccine dry run

• The exercise will be conducted in all states in at least three session sites.
• A concerned medical officer-in-charge will identify 25 test beneficiaries or healthcare workers at each of the three-session sites.
• Some 96,000 vaccinators have been trained for this, the Health Ministry had said. Of these, 2,360 participants have been trained in the National Training of Trainers and over 57,000 with district-level training in 719 districts.
• The vaccine introduction will be planned following the operational guidelines issued by the health ministry on 20 December.
• The Health Minister will monitor the dry run in the national capital. The sites are Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital in Shahdara, an urban primary health centre in Daryaganj, and Venkateshwar Hospital in Dwarka.
• All the sites will have a three-room setup – one waiting room, one vaccination room, and an observation room.
• A team of four people – one person to check the documents, one to check the registration of the beneficiaries, one to monitor the person, and one to control the crowd — will be present.
• The teams will have a vaccine carrier (cold box) that will be used to transport vaccines at the temperature they are meant to be stored from the cold chain points to the vaccination sites.
• Maharashtra will hold the dry run at Pune, Nagpur, Jalna, and Nandurbar
• Jharkhand will conduct the dry run in Ranchi, East Singhbhum, Chatra, Palamu, and Pakur.  Bengaluru Urban, Belagavi, Kalaburagi, Mysuru, and Shivamogga will undergo the dry run in Karnataka. Tamil Nadu will conduct the dry run in Chennai, Nilgiris, Tirunelveli, Tiruvallur, and Coimbatore. In Kerala, the dry run will be conducted in Thiruvananthapuram, Idukki, Palakkad, and Wayanad.

Meanwhile, the Serum Institute of India’s (SII) emergency-use authorisation (EUA) application for the coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca got the nod from the subject expert committee (SEC) of the national drugs regulator on Friday. However, the Drugs Controller General Of India (DCGI) will take a final call on the matter. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) had met thrice before, over the approval of vaccines.