Finance
By: Shree1news, 27 DEC 2020
With over 10 million total infections, India will maintain a dry run starting tomorrow for the largest and most ambitious mass immunisation programme in its history.
The dummy vaccination exercise, which will proceed for 2 days, will be carried out in two districts in each of those 4 states — Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, and Assam — on 28 and 29 December.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in a statement, mentioned that detailed training modules had been developed for various classes of vaccine handlers and administrators including medical officers, vaccinators, alternate vaccinators, cold chain handlers, supervisors, knowledge managers, ASHA coordinators and others involved within the implementation process at various levels.
A detailed checklist has been prepared by the Union Health Ministry and shared with the four states to information them within the dry run.
The dry run will proceed through four key steps, which will be monitored closely by the Centre:
1) Each district will receive the dummy vaccine for 100 beneficiaries from the nearest depot.
2) Temperature will be tracked through the vaccine’s journey from the depot to the vaccination site.
3) An SMS will be sent in advance to the beneficiaries with the name of the vaccinator, and the time of the vaccination.
4) Every beneficiary shall be made to sit for 30 minutes after being administered the shot; if an adverse event happens, its management will be tracked through the central server.
The dry run is intended to test India’s flagship vaccine delivery IT platform, Co-Win, at every stage, as per reports.
The health ministry also mentioned that another important focus area of the dry run will be the administration of possible adverse events following immunisation.
A number of coronavirus vaccines shall be temperature delicate – and as soon as the vaccination programme is rolled out, the nation’s cold chain system of 85,634 items of kit at 28,947 cold chain factors shall be used to store the vaccine.
Although the nation has not given a nod to any Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine, examined and manufactured in India by Serum Institute, is the front-runner. As soon as the UK drug regulator offers its approval to the vaccine, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation is likely to maintain a meeting where the details shall be reviewed and the nod will be given after evaluation.
source: A-N
