BHOPAL: Ahead of the actual rollout of the Covid vaccination programme, the corona vaccine dry run was completed at three notified centres in Bhopal on Saturday. The timing was 9.00am to 11.00am. These notified centres were LN Medical College; Community Health Centre (CHC), Gandhi Nagar, and PHC, Govindpura.
Minister for medical education Vishwas Sarang visited the Govindpura vaccination centre and took stock of the ongoing dry run. He spoke to officials and select beneficiaries about the arrangements and facilities at the vaccination centre.
Vaccination process
The select beneficiaries who were sent SMSes about the centre and timing underwent a mock immunization process. The staff of vaccination centres and a select group of healthcare workers participated in the mock immunization drive. Each centre had enrolled 25 beneficiaries for the mock drill. So, 75 beneficiaries participated in the mock drill for dummy vaccination. The mock drill included registration, verification, mock vaccination and post-shot observation.
Physical verification
For ensuring enough space, officials carried out physical verification of the sites. Logistical arrangements, including Internet connectivity, power supply and safety norms were overseen for the demonstration. The model sites must have separate entry and exit in a ‘three-room set-up’ with space outside for the purpose of generating awareness along with fully trained vaccination teams. Officials carried out an inspection of vaccination site on intervening on January 1 night before the start of the mock drill and they spoke to the select beneficiaries after SMSes about the dry run.
‘Operational feasibility’
"The aim of the dry run is to assess operational feasibility to test the linkages between planning and implementation and identify the challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation. We’re taking notice of such issues as space. Space is important as we need space when people start coming for the vaccination. However, we’ll decide the numbers for vaccination so that the space doesn’t fall short. We’re keeping track of all these issues," said Dr Sanjay Goel, commissioner, health.
‘Three-room set-up’
"As far the issue of space is concerned, model sites must have a separate entry and exit point and a three-room set-up. But the problem is that, at the PHCs, we don’t have three-room set-ups. We’ll overcome that problem. We need only one room for vaccination and we’ll arrange two other roomas — a waiting room and a post-observation room — by curtaining off the lawns," Dr Santosh Shukla, state immunization officer, remarked.
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