A second dry run to check the machinery to vaccinate people against Covid-19 and plug loopholes in logistics and training took place across the country on Friday. The first massive dry run was held on 2 January.
The Kerala health department on Friday said that the dry run for Covid-19 vaccination was carried out successfully at 46 centres across 14 districts in the state. The department said in a statement that the exercise was successful in both the urban and rural areas of the state.
“All the mandatory trial runs were conducted in all the centres of the state,” the statement added.
The state has requested the Centre for 5 lakh doses of Covid vaccine. The health department officials said that even if the quantity of doses is more, the department has all the facilities available to store them.
The first Covid-19 vaccination dry run in Kerala was conducted on January 2 at 6 centres in Thiruvananthapuram, Palakkad, Wayanad and Idukki districts.
Officials added that the current vaccine storage capacity in the state is sufficient for more than 10 lakh Covid vaccine doses.
Rajasthan too successfully conducted the second dry run of Covid-19 vaccination on Friday. State Health Minister Raghu Sharma said that a mock drill of Covid-19 vaccination involving 2,550 health workers was carried out on Friday by setting up 102 vaccination centres in all the districts of the state.
During the exercise, information was provided regarding the possible adverse effects that the beneficiaries could witness after Covid-19 vaccination and about the necessary protocols.
Sharma said that this was the second dry run of Covid-19 vaccination. In the first round, a mock drill was conducted for 424 corona warriors at 18 centres in 7 districts of the state on 2 January. He said that during both these dry runs, vaccination management was done taking all precautions and by following the scientific protocols.
He said that Friday’s mock drill was conducted by creating three categories of vaccine centres in each district. A total of 102 vaccine centres were set up in the medical colleges and district hospitals as part of the first category; CHCs, PHCs and urban dispensaries were part of the second category, while private medical institutions formed the third category. A target of 25 vaccinations was fixed for each centre.
Explaining the process, Sharma said that first of all, a model vaccination room and monitoring room were set up for the beneficiary following which rehearsal of administering the vaccine was done. The vaccination officers verified the identity documents and then gave entry to the beneficiary.
The beneficiary was then sent to the vaccination room after certifying on the Covid-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network (CoWIN) software, where the vaccinator completed the vaccination process (demo) and made entry on the CoWIN portal about administering vaccine to the beneficiary.
Sharma said that the beneficiary was them kept at the monitoring room for 30 minutes under the observation of the vaccination officer. During the process of dry run, the time taken to vaccinate one beneficiary and making entry on the CoWIN software was assessed and the process of running the software was checked.
The nationwide dry run was held at 736 districts across the country. Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh, however, did not participate in this dry run as they had already gone through it.
Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, on a visit to Tamil Nadu to oversee the dry run drill, said the vaccination should start in the country in the next few days and requested the NGOs working in the field of health to help in the smooth rollout of the process. He said the government has ensured that every details regarding vaccination is conveyed to the people from the national level to the grassroots level.