A day after an expert committee recommended the use of the Oxford vaccine candidate, which will be manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, a dry run of vaccination process will be conducted by all the State and UT governments today.
With the objective of gearing up for the roll out of COVID19 vaccine across the country, the Centre had on Thursday asked all States and UTs to ensure effective preparedness for the vaccine rollout. Earlier, a dry run was conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Punjab on December 28-29, 2020 in two districts each where five session sites with 25 beneficiaries each were identified. No major issues were observed in the operational aspects during this dry run. All states expressed confidence in the operational guidelines and IT platform for large scale programme implementation.
Here is all you need to know about today’s vaccine dry run:
The objective of the dry run for COVID-19 vaccine introduction is to assess operational feasibility in the use of Co-WIN application in field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide way forward prior to actual implementation. This is also expected to give confidence to programme managers at various levels.
The activity is proposed to be conducted in all State Capitals in at least 3 session sites; some States will also include districts that are situated in difficult terrain/have poor logistical support.
Maharashtra and Kerala are likely to schedule the dry run in major cities other than their Capital.
In Maharashtra, vaccine dry run will be conducted in Pune, Nagpurm Jalna and Nandurbar.
