Chennai, Jan 8 (UNI) Ahead of the roll out of the vaccine to for coronavirus, dry run for administering the vaccine was held across all the districts in Tamil Nadu, with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan inspecting the state's preparedness and the cold storage facilities.

The mock drill was being held as part of the nation-wide dry run

being held 736 districts across 33 States/UTs in the country.

Dr Harsh Vardhan, who landed in the city last night, inspected

the vaccine administration facilities at Rajiv Gandhi Government

General Hospital along with Health Minister Dr C Vijayabaskar

and Health Secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan.

Later, he inspected the state's preparedness on adminsitration

of vaccine at Government Multi-Super Speciality Hospital at

Omandurar Government Estate, visited the private vaccination

centre in Apollo Hospital and the General Medical Store Depot

(GMSD) in Periamedu, which is one of the four national vaccine

storage facilities, the other three being Mumbai, Kolkata and

Karnal.

Dr Vardhan also met Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and

held discussions on the preparations for vaccination.

Later, Dr Vardhan also visited the vaccination Centre at

Chengalpattu.

He also visited the Hindustan Bio-Tech Ltd Campus at Chengalpattu,

after concluding his supervision at these sites.

After the success of the dry run at 17 centres in five districts on

January two, a full-fledged mock drill was conducted in all the

38 districts of the State today.

The dry run of vaccination was conducted in five places, including

primary health centres, urban health centres, and government and

private hospitals, in all the districts of the State.

The dry run conducted by the health department was to check the

design of the waiting room, vaccination room and observation room,

the entry points, availability of space and time taken to cover 100

persons a day.

All these aspects were rehearsed during the State-level dry run.



Dr Radhakrishnan said the vaccine supply will be through the

Central government.

The State has readied 51 walk-in coolers and there were two

walk-in coolers exclusively for COVID-19 vaccines.

'Since, the Government Medical Stores Depot has to cover all

southern States, we have said that if necessary, they can store

in our (Tamil Nadu) facilities also. We have a storage capacity

of 2.5 crore doses,' he added.



He said the Centre has also allotted 33 lakh syringes to the

State in the first phase, of which 28 lakh syringes had been

received.

This would be distributed to every health unit district on the

basis of the healthcare workers’ population.

'When the Centre gives us the vaccine supply schedule, we

will be ready with all measures to start vaccinations,' he said.



Dr Radhakrishnan said in the first phase, six lakh healthcare

workers in the government, private sector and armed forces

would receive the vaccination.

While, 47,000 vaccine sites were readied, the healthcare workers

would be covered at nearly 3,000 sites with 100 persons a day.



Once healthcare workers and frontline workers are covered, the

vaccination will be open for the elderly.



The health secretary said the government has prioritized persons

aged above 18 years for the vaccine.

Yesterday, Dr Harsh Vardhan held a meeting with the Health Ministers

of all States.

UNI GV 1233