The Health Ministry will organise another “dry run” to test the vaccine roll-out on January 8 in all districts, said a Health Ministry release on Wednesday.
“As a simulation of actual execution, another round of dry run/mock drill in all 700-plus districts of all States/UTs [Union Territories] is planned on 8th January 2021 to ensure efficient planning and management for vaccine delivery in each district of all States/UTs. Each district will identify three types of session sites, similar to the previous dry run, including a public health facility (District Hospital/Medical College), private health facility and rural or urban outreach sites,” the Health Ministry release said.
The only exception will be districts in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana that had a dry run on January 5 and will have one more on January 7.
The dry run was important to check the performance of the CO-WIN software, whereby all beneficiaries will be informed and tracked on matters of vaccine administration.
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“The dry run will also familiarize the State, District, Block and Hospital level officers on all aspects of COVID-19 rollout. This activity will help administrators in strengthening the linkages between planning, implementation and reporting mechanisms, identification of any residual challenges prior to the actual implementation and provide confidence to the programme managers at all levels to carry out a smooth implementation of the vaccination drive,” the release noted.
Around 1.7 lakh vaccinators and 3 lakh vaccination team members had been trained on the process to be followed at the vaccination sites, which include beneficiary verification, vaccination, cold chain and logistics management, bio-medical waste management and adverse events following vaccination, the release said.
