A dry run of Covid-19 vaccine

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A dry run of Covid-19 vaccine planned in four states

About Dry Run

• India will hold a dry run for the largest and most ambitious mass immunisation programme in its history in the next week
• The dry run is intended to test the country’s flagship vaccine delivery IT platform, Co-Win, at every stage
• A total 2,360 participants have been put through the national-level training of trainers, which includes cold chain and immunisation officers
• The dry run will be monitored by the Centre,” a senior government official who is part of the team that will monitor the dry run

Which are the states selected for dummy vaccination exercise?

The exercise will be carried out in two districts each of four states at the four corners of the nation — Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, and Assam — on December 28 and 29.

Four key steps of dry run

The dry run will proceed through four key steps, which will be monitored closely by the central government:

1. Each district will receive the dummy vaccine for 100 beneficiaries from the nearest depot
2. The temperature will be tracked through the vaccine’s journey from the depot to the vaccination site
3. An SMS will be sent in advance to the beneficiaries with the name of the vaccinator, and the time of the vaccination
4. Each beneficiary will be made to sit for 30 minutes after being administered the shot; if an adverse event occurs, its management will be tracked through the central server.

Details of the four key steps: 

• First step: After states identify their two districts, the first step will be for them to schedule five vaccination sessions in five different locations. The locations will be primary health centres, community health centres, or a district hospital
• Second step: Next, the states will create a session using the Co-Win digital platform, and include 100 people in that session. A five-member vaccination team will be constituted.
• Third step: In the third step, 100 people will receive an SMS generated by the IT platform that will convey that vaccinator X will be vaccinating him/her on December 29 at sub-centre between Y and Z time”.
• Fourth step: The next step during the dry run will be related to the maintenance and tracking of the cold chain using the IT platform, sources said. Several Covid-19 vaccines will be temperature sensitive and once the vaccination programme is rolled out, the country’s cold chain system of 85,634 pieces of equipment at 28,947 cold chain points will be used to store the vaccine.

Other details 

• A team will be dispatched to the vaccination centre. The cold chain will be operational simultaneously. 
• The district will inform whether it will get its vaccine from the nearest state depot or the Government Medical Store Depot (GMSD). 
  • There are four GMSDs run by the Union government, and 27 state consignee points
• The district will inform from which location the vaccine has to be received, where it is being taken, and details of the cold chain temperature up to the vaccination site
• while every state will have a consignee point in next week’s dry run, when the actual vaccine administration programme is rolled out, some states will receive their consignments from others.
• Not all states have a state consignee point. For example, Nagaland, which does not have a state consignee point for receiving the vaccine, will get it from the nearest state

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