A second dry run for vaccination against COVID-19 will take place in all states on Friday, sources said. The first major dry run took place on January 2. The exercise looked at the best way to vaccinate citizens against COVID-19 and plug gaps in logistics and preparation.
On Friday, the day-long drive will again assess the operational feasibility of applying Co-WIN in a field environment. Co-WIN is a digital framework to carry out and scale up the vaccination drive, short for Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network.
The Government has stated that vaccination against COVID-19 will begin within 10 days of the date on which the emergency use authorization was issued to the vaccine manufacturer. India cleared Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covishield developed by the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
The government has been planning for the vaccine roll-out for the last four months, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said last week when a dry run took place.
During the dry run, more than 20 health workers are given dummy vaccines at each location, which are intended to test the processes and identify potential vulnerabilities in the system ahead of the actual vaccination campaign.
Some of the features of the Co-WIN app that India is developing to inoculate millions of individuals against COVID-19 include Aadhaar authentication and SMS confirming vaccination in at least 12 languages.
The government has prioritized groups, including physicians, healthcare staff, police, and those directly interested in combating the pandemic, that will get the vaccine first.
All anti-coronavirus vaccines produced in India can be stored at 2-8 degrees Celsius because temperature-as-a-factor logistics have been worked out, Department of Biotechnology Secretary Renu Swarup said on Tuesday.
Apart from Covishield and Covaxin, the DNA vaccine candidate Zydus Cadila and the Biological E mRNA vaccine both operate at 2-8 degree Celsius storage temperature.
The Zydus Cadila candidate has been given clearance for a phase 3 trial, while the Biological E candidate is in phase 1 clinical trial.
