Officials of the Health Department and the Krishna district administration are gearing up to conduct an end-to-end COVID-19 vaccine distribution dry run on December 28 and 29 as Andhra Pradesh has been selected for the exercise along with three other States by the Centre.
According to the Department of Health and Family Welfare Commissioner Katamneni Bhaskar, the dry run would be conducted at five session sites – Government General Hospital, Vijayawada, Public Health Centre (PHC), Uppuluru, Purna Heart Institute, Vijayawada, PHC, Penamaluru and Urban PHC, Prakash Nagar, Vijayawada with 25 dummy beneficiaries (healthcare workers) at each site in a two-hour slot.
Each beneficiary would pass through five Vaccine Officers at the site and their details would be verified with the Co-WIN application, get vaccinated and stay under observation for 30 minutes before leaving.
“The dry run is aimed at testing the planned operations and the laid out mechanisms for CoVID-19 vaccination in the State and it will provide insights on any gaps or bottlenecks so that those could be addressed before the commencement of the actual vaccination drive. It will be used to test preparedness for vaccinating pre-identified beneficiaries from specified groups supported by Co-WIN, an electronic application,” the Commissioner said in a release.
The government has already identified the Vaccine Officers and healthcare workers and their details have been uploaded to Co-WIN portal.
Training
An Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI) committee has been formed as per the guidelines and the vaccine team members were scheduled to be trained on Saturday.
On Monday, the dry run would be conducted under video coverage and reports would be submitted to the district and State task force committees.