New Delhi: After a successful dry run conducted in four states to test the preparedness of Covid-19 vaccine rollout, the Government of India is gearing up to hold similar exercises across the country.
A meeting has been convened with the states Thursday to discuss the matter. Every state, sources said, will be asked to identify two Covid vaccination sites in their capital cities to conduct a nationwide dry run to review the level of preparedness for the roll out of the vaccine.
“We have conducted a dry run in seven districts of four states and we have received some feedback and some inputs based on which we have made changes in the protocol. Now we are planning to expand it to the whole country,” said a senior health ministry official.
“We will tell states to identify two sites in their capitals and conduct a dry run there to check about the level of preparedness, real time monitoring etc. We will tell them about the date and time of the exercise later,” added the official.
The purpose of the countrywide exercise is to keep the vaccination machinery well-oiled, even as the wait got a little longer for a licensed Covid vaccine in India with the Subject Expert Committee of the Drug Controller General of India seeking more time to study the data submitted by both the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech.
The review of the preparedness of Covid sites for vaccine administration, the official said, will also test whether the feedback received from the four states after the dry run makes a qualitative addition to the process.
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Capitals chosen keeping in mind profile of priority beneficiaries
The dry run on 28-29 December was carried out in seven districts — Krishna (Andhra Pradesh), Rajkot and Gandhinagar (Gujarat), Ludhiana and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (Punjab) and Sonitpur and Nalbari (Assam).
The districts were chosen to ensure maximum diversity and also to test how well the system functions in remote areas.
However, this time the decision to limit the vaccination sites to the capital cities has been taken with an eye on the priority list of beneficiaries, the official added.
Among the first group of beneficiaries that have so far been identified are healthcare providers and workers — about one crore of them — in healthcare settings of both government and private.
The second group are frontline workers — about two crore of them. They include personnel from the state and central police departments, armed forces, Home Guard and civil defence organisations, including disaster management volunteers and municipal workers, excluding healthcare workers.
“All of these people are more likely to be concentrated around the capital. That is why we are asking for sites in the capital to be included in this review exercise,” the official explained.
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