Dry run for Covid vaccine rollout in Haryana tomorrow, aims to inoculate 67 lakh this year

In order to ensure successful implementation of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout in Haryana, a ‘dry run’ will be conducted on January 7 (Thursday) across the state in all the 22 districts, on six sites, including three urban and three rural sites, from 11 am to 1 pm.

Haryana Chief Secretary Vijai Vardhan presided over a meeting of the State Steering Committee and the State Task Force for the vaccine held with all deputy commissioners through video conferencing here Tuesday.

Vardhan asked officers to ensure that all the guidelines issued by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare are followed at the time of ‘dry run’. He also asked officers to remain alert regarding the new strain of the Covid-19 found in people coming from Britain and said that tracing and testing of such people should be done on priority. Also, contact tracing of these people should be done strictly, he added. Vardhan said it was mandatory to record details of the healthcare workers who are to be included in the ‘dry run’ to be conducted on January 7 in the software.

In the meeting, Additional Chief Secretary, Health & Family Welfare Department, Rajeev Arora said, “As per the scheme of Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, ‘dry run’ was conducted on January 2 in Panchkula district. Taking this forward, now on January 7, a ‘dry run’ will be conducted across the state, which aims to practice the entire process of Covid-19 vaccine rollout from beginning to end so that all the challenges in its implementation can be identified”.

Arora added, “The platform of existing universal immunization programme of State with enhanced capacity will be used for providing Covid-19 vaccine. According to the central government guidelines, the introduction of the vaccine will start this year with the vaccination of a number of groups and healthcare workers. Health workers will be vaccinated under category-1. Under category-2, frontline workers like municipality and sanitation workers, state and central police forces, civil defense and armed forces and revenue officers will be vaccinated, while people over 50 years of age will be vaccinated under category-3, and those below the age of 50 years who are ill will be vaccinated under category-4.”

Mission Director, National Health Mission (NHM), Haryana, Prabhjot Singh said, “About 67 lakh people will be vaccinated this year. These include health workers (around 2 lakh), front line workers (4.5 lakh), population above the age of 50 (58 lakh), people below the age of 50 who are ill (2.25 lakh). This activity is being monitored at all levels and state level supervisors have been deployed at each session site to monitor the overall implementation and identify any concern or problem. Regional teams of the World Health Organization (WHO) and United National Development Program (UNDP) will be involved”.

All districts of Haryana reported less than 50 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours with 14 districts reporting either nil or less than 10 new cases. A total of 259 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours while four patients lost their lives due to Covid-19. With 300 patients recovering, the recovery rate reached 97.87 per cent.

While Gurgaon reported the maximum 35 new cases, Faridabad added 29, Sonipat (8), Hisar (7), Ambala (25), Karnal (12), Panipat (34), Rohtak (16), Rewari (4), Panchkula (32), Kurukshetra (5), Yamunanagar (8), Sirsa (7), Mahendragarh (1), Bhiwani (21), Jhajjar (1), Palwal (0), Fatehabad (1), Kaithal (5), Jind (7), Nuh (1), Charkhi Dadri (0).

Among the four patients who died, one each died in Faridabad, Karnal, Kurukshetra and Jhajjar districts.

The number of active Covid-19 patients in the State dipped to 2692. There were 121 patients in a critical condition including 107 on oxygen support while 14 patients were on ventilator, as on Tuesday evening.