A dry run for COVID-19 vaccination was completed at five centres in Madurai district on Friday to assess preparedness and identify areas of problems ahead of the actual vaccination exercise.
Initially, a dry run was completed at 17 sites in five districts of the State on January 2 and a second dry run was conducted in all the districts on Friday. A total of 25 beneficiaries took part in each of the five centres in the district - Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH), Melur Government Hospital, Kovil Pappakudi Primary Health Centre, K. Pudur Urban Primary Health Centre and Apollo Hospital.
Deputy Director of Health Services K.V. Arjun Kumar and Dean J. Sangumani inaugurated the dry run at the GRH. All the beneficiaries were healthcare workers.
The list of beneficiaries was uploaded on the CoWIN (COVID-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network) platform. The beneficiaries received an SMS on their mobile phones mentioning the date, venue and time for their vaccination.
Each centre had five vaccination officers under a nodal officer. Each centre had a beneficiary waiting room, vaccination room and observation room.
At the centre, an officer verified the identity of the beneficiaries with voter ID, employee ID, driving licence or PAN card. After verification, the beneficiaries were sent to the vaccination room where another officer verified their details on the CoWIN platform. After that, a mock vaccination was held, after which the beneficiaries were sent to the observation room where they were put under the surveillance of an officer for 30 minutes.
“The dry run was successfully completed in all the five centres in Madurai district. It helped us check the execution of micro planning and issues that popped up during the process,” said Dr. Arjun Kumar.
A health official in one of the centres said issues pertaining to internet connectivity, lack of a clock in the observation room, and the need to deploy police to regulate the beneficiaries at the centres were identified during the dry run.
The health officials also performed a mock exercise during which ‘a beneficiary developed adverse effects after vaccination.’ “If any beneficiary develops any adverse effect after vaccination, a team of doctors will immediately attend to the person. The vial of dose will be kept aside and the other beneficiaries will be checked to see if they had developed any symptom,” said Dr. Arjun Kumar.
