India to conduct second coronavirus vaccine dry run on Jan 8

With the Centre gearing up for the rollout of Covid-19 vaccine, the second round of dry run will be conducted across the country on January 8 to ensure efficient planning and management for vaccine delivery. The first round of dry run was held on January 2.

A meeting of Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan with the state/UT Health Ministers will be held on January 7 to guide them on the conduct of dry run. Uttar Pradesh and Haryana will be exempted from the country-wide exercise as the former will conduct the mock drill on January 7 while the latter conducted it on January 5. Around 1.7 lakh vaccinators and 3 lakh vaccination team members have been trained on the process to be followed at the vaccination sites which include beneficiary verification, vaccination, cold chain and logistics



management, bio-medical waste management, AEFI management and reporting on Co-WIN software.

India’s Covid caseload rose to over 1.3 crore with 18,088 infections being reported on Wednesday, while the recoveries are nearing one crore. Over 1.5 lakh people have died of the infection, including 264 people who succumbed to the disease in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, the number of people who have tested positive for the new UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the country climbed to 73, the Union health ministry has informed.

Two vaccines — Covaxin developed by Bharat Biotech with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and Covishield, a variant of Oxford AstraZeneca’s AZD1222 manufactured under licence by the Serum Institute of India — have received emergency use approval from India’s drug regulator.