Central Govt says all States, UTs to start Covid-19 vaccine dry test on January 2

The central government has ordered all the states and union territories in the country to run dry tests for Covid-19 vaccines on January 2. The drill will be conducted in all the State capitals in a minimum of three session sites for demonstration.

The vaccine dry run procedure consists of transporting the vaccines form storage to the sites, administering them to the candidates and updating the data on CO-WIN app. The motif of carrying out this drill is to ensure that there will not be disruption of any kind during the process and the procedures will be carried out efficiently.

"The objective of the dry Run for Covid-19 vaccine introduction is to assess operational feasibility in the use of Co-WIN application in field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide way forward prior to actual implementation," said a senior government official.

The government had already conducted a two-day dry run on December 28th and 29th in the states Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab. No major issues were detected and all states expressed their confidence in operational guidelines and IT platform to conduct large scale implementation of it.

The decision to extend it to all other states is declared since the drug regulator body of India gave indication to start the new year with vaccine introduction. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) will meet today to discuss the emergency use approval of three vaccines: Pfizer, Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin.

From each of the three session sites, the Medical officer will identify 25 test beneficiaries or healthcare workers who will be present at the session sites during the drill. Many of the states have already started training the people who would be administering the vaccines to patients.

The physical verification of all proposed sites for adequacy of enough space, availability of good internet connection, electricity and safety etc are to be ensured by the states and UIs before proceeding with the dry run tests.