As India came closer to the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccine, a dry run was held by all states and union territories on Saturday in preparation for a massive inoculation drive.
India has reported 1.03 crore COVID-19 cases so far and the exercise was held on a day an expert panel of the central drug authority recommended granting permission for restricted emergency use of the indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, with certain conditions, after giving similar direction for the Oxford vaccine Covishield.
The first dry run was conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat and Punjab on December 28-29 with at least 125 intended beneficiaries at five sites in a maximum of two districts each.
Here are key numbers related to January 2 vaccine dry run:
The dry run involved 286 session sites spread across 125 districts.
More than 75 lakh beneficiaries have been registered on Co-WIN software which has been developed by the health ministry for real time information of vaccine stocks, their storage temperature and individualized tracking of beneficiaries for COVID-19 vaccine.
Maharashtra, Kerala and Gujarat conducted the mock drill in four districts each, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in five districts each while Rajasthan carried out the dry-run in seven districts.
On Saturday, the dry run was conducted at identified health centres in Nagpur, Jalna, Pune and Nandurbar districts of Maharashtra.
In Kerala, at least 25 health workers each in four districts- Thiruvananthapuram, Idukki, Wayanad and Palakkad - took part in the drill.
The exercise was held at Kalaburagi, Shivamogga, Mysuru, Belagavi, and Bengaluru districts of Karnataka.
In Tamil Nadu, the dry run was held at three centres each in the districts of Chennai, Tiruvallur, Nilgiris and Tirunelveli, and five in Coimbatore.
Around 1,14,100 vaccinators have been trained on the process to be followed at the vaccination sites which includes beneficiary verification, vaccination, cold chain and logistics management, Bio-Medical Waste management, AEFI management and uploading the information on Co-WIN software, the statement said.
The Co-WIN software assist the programme managers across all levels through automated session allocation for pre-registered beneficiaries, their verification and a digital certificate will be generated upon successful completion of the vaccine schedule.
Single day increase of 18,177 new COVID-19 cases was recorded in India on Sunday, taking the country's caseload to 1,03,23,965, while the number of people who have recuperated from the disease stands at 99,27,310, according to the health ministry.
The death toll due to the disease climbed to 1,49,435 in the country with 217 new fatalities, the ministry's data updated at 8 AM showed.
