Dry run for COVID-19 vaccination drive successfully conducted in 4 states: Health Ministry

New Delhi, Dec 29: A two-day dry run to assess the readiness of the mechanism laid out for the COVID-19 immunisation drive, which is expected to begin soon, was successfully conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Assam, the Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

The end-to-end exercise was undertaken in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, Rajkot and Gandhinagar of Gujarat, Ludhiana and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar of Punjab, and Sonitpur and Nalbari districts of Assam on Monday and Tuesday.

Specific teams were formed for various tasks by the district administrations and activities like uploading of dummy beneficiary data, session site creation, vaccine allocation, communicating vaccination details to beneficiaries and vaccinators, and beneficiary mobilization were carried out, the health ministry said.

Field feedback on the first day of dun run was reviewed on December 29 through video conferencing with state and district programme officers by the joint secretary (Public Health).

"All the states expressed satisfaction in terms of operational approach and use of IT platform to ensure transparency and effective monitoring of vaccination processes expected to cover a large number of people across the country.

"Additional suggestions on IT platform were also noted for further enhancement of Co-WIN platform. Detailed insights and feedback obtained will help enrich the operational guidelines and IT platform, and will strengthen the COVID-19 vaccination roll out plan," the ministry said.

Backed with the experience of rolling out Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) and conducting nationwide multiple wide-range injectable vaccination campaigns such as measles-rubella and adult Japanese Encephalitis campaign, required steps were being undertaken to vaccinate priority population groups such as healthcare and frontline workers, and people above 50 years for COVID-19, it stated.

The exercise tested the COVID-19 vaccination process, including planning and preparations according to operational guidelines; creation of facilities and users on Co-WIN application, session site creation and mapping of sites, uploading healthcare workers data, receipt of vaccines and their allocation by districts, session planning, deployment of vaccination team, logistics mobilisation at session sites, mock drill of conducting the drive, and reporting and review meetings at block, district and state levels. The objective of the dry run was also to undertake and confirm field implementation of the Co-WIN and guide the way forward prior to its implementation.