COVID-19: Health Minister Harsh Vardhan makes big announcement about dry run for vaccination

Just a day before the dry run of COVID-19 vaccination drive, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Friday (January 1) held a review meeting with Delhi government for the preparation of the crucial programme. 

Dr Harsh Vardhan said that the main aim of the dry run is to research the minutest details in detail. "At least 2 vaccines have sent their applications to Drug Controller & experts for approval, their data are being studied pro-actively," he added.

"The lists of health workers have been created & will be uploaded on COVID platform. Just like we prepare during elections, the same way we need to train each member of all medical teams responsibly: Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on dry run of Covid-19 vaccine on January 2. After training over 2,000 master trainers at the national level, the training is underway at State and district level, in over 700 districts. The procedure is similar to conducting elections where the team at a booth is also trained," added the Union Health Minister.

Earlier, the Centre had asked all States and UTs to ensure effective preparedness for the vaccine rollout. Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Thursday chaired a high-level meeting to review the preparedness at session sites for COVID-19 vaccination with Principal Secretaries (Health), NHM MDs and other health administrators of all States/UTs through video conference.

The dry run will be conducted by all the State and UT governments on 2nd January 2021 (Saturday). The activity is proposed to be conducted in all State Capitals in at least 3 session sites; some States will also include districts that are situated in difficult terrain/have poor logistical support; Maharashtra and Kerala are likely to schedule the dry run in major cities other than their Capital.

In a related development, the Subject Expert Committe of the national drugs regulator will meet on Friday to decide on issuing an approval on the emergency-use authorisation for Serum Institute of India’s (SII) Oxford-AstraZeneca and Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccines.