The nationwide drill will be held at three-session sites of 736 districts across 33 States/UTs.
Highlights
- The dry run is taking place across 737 districts in the country
- UP, Haryana and Arunachal will not participate in this dry run
- The first massive dry run was held on January 2
A second dry run to check the best way to vaccinate people against COVID-19 and plug loopholes in logistics and training is taking place across 737 districts in the country today. The first massive dry run was held on January 2. The day-long exercise will again test the operational feasibility of the CoWIN application in a field environment. Short for Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network, CoWIN is a digital platform to roll out and scale up the vaccination drive. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has asked state health ministers to submit their inputs after the dry run gets completed.
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The nationwide drill is being held at three-session sites of 736 districts across 33 States/Union Territories. Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh will not participate in this dry run as they have already gone through it.
The second dry run will span several districts of Delhi, officials said. City Health Minister Satyendar Jain had earlier said the vaccine will be provided to the people of Delhi for free once it arrives.
Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, who is on a visit to Tamil Nadu to oversee the dry run drill, said the vaccination should start in the country in the next few days and requested the NGOs working in the field of health to help in the smooth rollout of the process. He said the government has ensured that every details regarding vaccination is conveyed to the people from the national level to the grassroot level.
Maharashtra will carry out the exercise in 30 districts and in 25 municipal areas of the state. The dry run will be conducted at three medical institutions in each of these 30 districts and in one medical institution in each corporation. Districts and corporation that were included in the dry run that was conducted on January 2 will be excluded from the exercise.
Sixty-nine venues across West Bengal have been selected for the dry run. Bengal has sought six lakh doses for frontline Covid warriors.
Assam -- among the best performing states in the country for COVID-19 management -- will have trials in all the districts. Since September, Assam has been working on its Covid vaccination plans to cover 1.75 lakh frontline medical employees in the state.
During the dry run, over 25 health workers get dummy vaccines at each site, which is meant to test the mechanisms and reveal possible gaps in the system ahead of the actual vaccination drive.
Aadhaar authentication and SMS confirming vaccination in at least 12 languages are some of the features of the CoWIN app that India is developing to help inoculate millions of people against COVID-19.
India has cleared Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for emergency use.
India reported 18,139 coronavirus cases today taking the total number of infections in the country past 1.04 crore. The total number of cases of the UK mutant Covid strain stands at 83 so far.
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