Vaccine dry run held across 737 districts before roll-out
Harsh Vardhan says whatever was lacking earlier has been rectified in the drill
A medic conducts the dry run of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine on a beneficiary, at a civil hospital in Bengaluru, on Friday.
India on Friday conducted the second nationwide drill to test the country’s preparedness to hold a Covid-19 vaccination drive across 737 districts in all the states and Union territories.
In the national capital, the dry run was conducted in districts, including south Delhi, south east Delhi, north west Delhi and New Delhi. Officials said 10 vaccination centres have been chosen in south Delhi for the dry run, including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Safdarjung Hospital, Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya Hospital, Pushpwati Singhania Hospital and Research Institute.
Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain had earlier said that the Covid-19 vaccine will be provided to the people of Delhi for free once it arrives and asserted that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government had made all preparations for the vaccination drive.
Following the dry run in Karnataka, health minister K Sudhakar on Friday said the state is expected to receive 1,390,000 vials of the vaccine in a day or two, and it is likely to be administered starting from January 11. “The big good news for Karnataka is that I have received information from the Union Health Ministry that tomorrow or the day after probably we will be receiving 13,90,000 vials of vaccine for the state. It’s happy news for all of us,” he said.
Speaking to reporters after visiting a private hospital here, where vaccination dry run is being conducted, Sudhakar said the vaccination will be first administered to healthcare workers.
“We have registered 6.30 lakh healthcare professionals in Karnataka till date. For those who have been left out, may be in some medical or dental colleges, we have requested them to register,” he said, adding that health workers will be followed by those with comorbidities, those above 60 years and those in other departments like Police and Revenue who are working against the pandemic.
In Tripura, the second phase of dry run for Covid-19 vaccination drive started in eight districts on Friday. A total of 152 sites have been selected for the dry run, according to National Health Medi Mission director Dr.
Siddharth Shiv Jaiswal.
“We have already trained a total of 211 teams for the vaccination drive. Among them, 152 teams have been given the responsibility of the vaccination centres,” Jaiswal said.
A monitoring team was formed comprising officials from the World Health Organization, United Nations Development Programme and National
Health Mission to visit the sites during the dry run,” Jaiswal added. In Kerala, the mock drill was successfully conducted in 46 centres in Kerala on Friday, Health Minister K K Shailaja announced. The storage facilities for the vaccine are also getting ready in various places, she added. Friday’s drill was the largest undertaken in the country so far. The first countrywide drill that was held on January 2 covered 74 districts.
The first dry run was carried out in just eight districts in four states on December 28-29.
“The lessons learnt from the earlier exercises will be made use of to execute another dry run. Whatever was lacking earlier has been rectified, and will be tested in Friday’s dry run,” Union health minister Harsh Vardhan told states and Union Territories in an online meeting on Thursday. India’s drugs regulator has approved Oxford Covid-19 vaccine Covishield, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, and the indigenously developed Covaxin of Bharat Biotech for restricted emergency use in the country.