New Delhi: Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare conducted a two-day dry run for activities entailed in Covid-19 vaccination in four states – Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Gujarat on 28th and 29th December 2020.
Backed with the experience of rolling out Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) and conducting nationwide multiple wide-range injectable vaccination campaigns such as measles-rubella (MR) and adult Japanese Encephalitis (JE) campaign, required steps are being undertaken to vaccinate priority population groups such as Health care workers, Frontline workers and people above 50 years for Covid-19, the Ministry said.
The dry run exercise is aimed at end-to-end testing of COVID-19 vaccination process and will include planning & preparations as per the Operational Guidelines; creation of facilities & users on Co-WIN application, session site creation & mapping of sites, Health Care Workers (HCW) data upload, receipt of vaccines and vaccine allocationby the district, session planning, deployment of vaccination team, logistics mobilization at session site, mock drill of conducting vaccination and reporting and review meetings at block, districts and state level. The objective of dry the run is also to undertake and confirm field implementation of IT platform Co-WIN and guide way forward prior to actual implementation.
District Collector with engagement of district and block task force were made responsible for conducting the dry run and it was expected to provide insights on any gaps or bottle-necks during actual conduct of vaccination, it added.