India will be conducting a full-dress rehearsal for the world’s largest immunization in two districts each of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Assam on December 28 and 29. The Nation will hold a dry run for the immunization programme with dummy vaccination exercise for two days.
Indian Government is bracing up to commence the dry run of vaccination even as several nations have already started inoculation. The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) may soon grant the regulatory approval to vaccines.
The Central Government will monitor the dry run process. Each district will be given a dummy vaccine each for 100 beneficiaries. Officials will track the temperature of vaccine containers from the storage to vaccination venue. Beneficiaries will be alerted with an SMS which will also bear the name of vaccinator and the time for vaccination. The beneficiaries will be put under watch after administering of vaccine for half an hour to see if any contingency arises. A Centralized server will be tracking the management of the entire programme.
An elaborated training programme had been devised by Health and Family Welfare Ministry for around 2360 people including vaccine handlers, administrators, medical officers, vaccinators, alternate vaccinators, cold chain handlers, supervisors, data workers, ASHA coordinators. Training of 7000 participants has been completed at state-level in all states and Union Territories barring Lakshadweep The dry run is designed to test the efficacy of their training in a real-life situation. It will also test the vaccine delivery IT Platform CO-WIN, Cold Chain, Biomedical Waste Management, etc.
The vaccine dry sessions will be held at five different locations as community health centres, primary health centres or district hospitals.
