COVID Vaccine Dry Run in All States/UTs from Jan 2

All states will begin the dry run for Covid-19 vaccination from January 2, according to the union health ministry. A high-level meeting was held on Thursday where the decision of dry run for vaccination has been taken.

The dry run will be conducted by all the State and Union Territories on Saturday.The ministry has proposed that the dry run be conducted in all state capitals in at least three session sites.

According to the health ministry, "Some states will also include districts that are situated in difficult terrain/have poor logistical support; Maharashtra and Kerala are likely to schedule the dry run in major cities other than their capital."

Earlier, a two-day dry run to assess the readiness of the mechanism laid out for the Covid-19 immunisation drive was successfully conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Assam, the Union Health Ministry said. Field feedback on the first day of the dun run was reviewed on December 29 through video conferencing with state and district programme officers by the joint secretary (Public Health).

"All the states expressed satisfaction in terms of operational approach and use of IT platform to ensure transparency and effective monitoring of vaccination processes expected to cover a large number of people across the country.Additional suggestions on IT platform were also noted for further enhancement of Co-WIN platform. Detailed insights and feedback obtained will help enrich the operational guidelines and IT platform, and will strengthen the Covid-19 vaccination roll-out plan," the ministry said.

According to the Union health ministry, the objective of the dry run for Covid-19 vaccine introduction is to assess operational feasibility in the use of Co-WIN application in a field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation. This is also expected to give confidence to programme managers at various levels, the ministry said.