Chennai/Madurai, Jan 02 (UNI) The dry run for the COVID-19 vaccination was held at 17 health care centres in five districts across the State on Saturday.



The objective of the nationwide dry run for coronavirus vaccine introduction was to assess operational feasibility in the use of COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) application in a field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation.



Health Secretary J.Radhakrishnan was present at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) to kick off the mock exercise.



Though no vaccine was administered in the dry run, the plan was to see that 25 dummy beneficiaries visited the vaccination site in two hours.



Health officials said the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation and the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine have taken up the work of creating infrastructure to preserve the vaccine for 2.5 crore persons in the first phase.



The list of identified beneficiaries, vaccination sites, vaccinators, the cold chain points and persons who will coordinate the logistics was being uploaded on a separate portal.



During the mock process, the health officials checked whether the name of the beneficiaries were on the list and then allowed them inside the vaccination site. The beneficiary’s identity with the database on the portal was also verified before the process of dummy vaccination. The beneficiaries will get an update on the second dose.



For the first dose also, the health department generated an SMS wherein the beneficiary will know in advance when, where and at what time the beneficiary needs to come for vaccination, they said.



The dry run was held at Chennai, Poonamallee, Nilgris, Tirunelveli and Coimbatore.



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