As part of the nation-wide dry run for COVID-19 vaccine administration on Saturday, Kerala will also go through the exercise at six sites in four districts in the State at the same time.
In the capital city, the dry run for vaccine administration will be held at the Poozhanad primary health centre (PHC), Peroorkada district model hospital and the KIMS hospital in the private sector. The dry run will also be held at the Vazhathoppu PHC in Idukki, Nenmara community health centre in Palakkad and the the Kurukkamoola PHC in Wayanad.
At each session site, 25 health-care workers, who will be the immediate beneficiaries of COVID-19 vaccination, will take part in the dry run, to be held from 9 a.m. till 11 a.m. and is essentially a mock drill of beneficiary vaccination and reporting.
Testing of CoWIN platform
The dry run will exercise end to end testing of COVID-19 vaccination process and will include planning and preparations for vaccine introduction and primarily, the testing of the electronic application, CoWIN (COVID-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network).
CoWIN is a platform readied by the Centre for the smooth and seamless facilitation of the entire vaccination process, right from who gets the vaccines to following up every individual through any adverse events till the second dose of vaccine is administered .
The test link of CoWIN has been readied for the dry run.
The primary objective of the dry run would be to assess the operational feasibility of using CoWIN application in field environment; to test linkages between planning, implementation and reporting mechanisms; and to identify challenges and evolve solutions before actual implementation of the vaccination programme.
25 health workers
At each session site, the medical officer in-charge concerned will identify the 25 health-care workers to be vaccinated and their data would be uploaded on the CoWIN test link. The Call Centre/Helpline (104/1075) will also be tested by making one or two calls to the Call Centre for queries redressal.
An important focus of the dry run will be on management of any possible adverse events following immunisation (AEFI). In addition, adherence and management of infection control practices at the session site, to prevent disease transmission will also be monitored
The dry run will be followed by a review at the State Task Force on Immunisation.
