Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare reviewed the preparedness for the nationwide Mock Drill on the COVID vaccination scheduled on 8th January. 

Highlights

    • The second nationwide mock drill on the Covid-19 vaccination will be held at three session sites of 736 districts across 33 States/UTs.

    • The objective of the mock drill on COVID19 vaccination is to simulate the actual vaccine administration event.

    • The entire planning of the vaccination drive including beneficiary registration, microplanning and vaccination at the planned session site, will be tested under the leadership of District Collector/District Magistrate. 

    • The dry run will also familiarize the State, District, Block and Hospital level officers on all aspects of COVID-19 roll out.

    • This activity will help administrators in strengthening the linkages between planning, implementation and reporting mechanisms, identification of any residual challenges prior to the actual implementation and to provide confidence to the programme managers at all levels to carry out a smooth implementation of the vaccination drive.

    • Multiple stakeholders including the central and state government officials and the medical community have worked proactively in the last few months to compose and disseminate detailed guidelines on the upcoming vaccination drive, train the vaccine administrators.

    • Unique digital platform, Co-WIN, repurposed from the e-VIN platform that will provide real time information of vaccine stocks, their storage temperature and individualized tracking of beneficiaries of the COVID-19 vaccine.

    • Digital platform will assist the program managers across all levels through automated session allocation for pre-registered beneficiaries, their verification and for generating a digital certificate upon successful completion of the vaccine schedule.

    • More than 78 lakh beneficiaries have been already registered on the platform so far.

    • Government has assured that the country’s cold chain infrastructure has been sufficiently upgraded to ensure last mile delivery and that adequate supplies of syringes and other logistics have also been provided for.

    • In fact India has unparalleled experience in dealing with immunization and runs one of the largest universal immunization programs in the world which has been applauded by the world for its robustness which includes Polio, Rubella and Measles.

    • Government has also ensured that non-COVID essential services are not adversely impacted.

    • To strengthen the capacity of our human resource for COVID-19 vaccine introduction and roll-out, detailed training modules have been developed for different categories of vaccine handlers and administrators including medical officers, vaccinators, alternate vaccinators, cold chain handlers, supervisors, data managers, ASHA coordinators and all others involved in the implementation process at different levels.

    • The earlier national mock drill of 2nd Jan 2021 helped to iron out any glitches in the final execution and further refinement of the operational procedures. The feedback from most of the States/UTs was satisfactory conduct of the dry run.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)