Four Indian states to participate in the Covid-19 immunisation dry run, works begin with Punjab

The Indian government will start a dry run of its Covid vaccination drive from Punjab on December 28 and 29 to test the mechanisms of Covid-19 vaccination roll out in the country. The dry run is expected to provide insights on any gaps or bottlenecks that could be ironed out before the start of the immunisation drive. The Punjab government in a statement on Thursday said that districts of Ludhiana and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar will be two places where this programme will take place.

States such as Andhra, Assam, Gujarat will also be part of this dry run.

Balbir Singh, Health Minister Punjab said that the United Nations Development Programme and the World Health Organisation will be supporting this activity. All activities starting from beneficiary data upload, session site allocation (micro-planning), session site management (with test beneficiaries) to reporting & evening debriefing are to be covered in this 2 day dry run to execute the nearest possible simulation of the actual day, Singh said in a statement.

"It will provide insights on any gaps or bottlenecks so that those could be addressed before the commencement of the COVID-19 drive", Singh explained. Adding the dry run will exercise end to end testing of COVID-19 vaccination process and will vaccinate pre-identified beneficiaries from specified groups supported by CoVIN, an electronic application for Covid vaccination.