In a run up to the almost final allocation of corona vaccine, the Punjab Government on Monday successfully completed the dry run in 12 sites of two districts — Ludhiana and SBS Nagar (Nawanshahr).

“As many as 25 beneficiaries have been identified from among health workers as beneficiaries and their required data uploaded on portal created for dry run by the Central Government. The session sites uploaded on a portal which linked with cold chain points for delivery of vaccine (dummy),” said the state Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu.

Giving details about teams deputed for the vaccination program, Sidhu said that the vaccinator and four additional team members identified and vaccination teams were allocated vaccination sites at all 12 sites as per micro-plan finalized for the program.

He said that team of supervisors were also appointed to overview the first phase of dry run so as to ensure the smooth run of all activities as per standard operation procedure (SOPs).

Beneficiaries allocated vaccination sites and they received SMS successfully informing them date, time, and place of vaccination and AEFI (Adverse Event Following Immunization) management centres identified and linked with vaccination sites, he added.

Sidhu said that on December 29, lists of beneficiaries will be printed and provided to vaccination teams. “Beneficiaries will come physically and they will be verified in the portal. They will follow the process and wait for 30 minutes,” he said.

“Arrangement of biomedical waste management is also made in place.

104 Helpline was tested making a phone call and correct information was provided by helpline operators to all beneficiaries,” he said giving the details of the dry run.

Notably, two districts from Punjab — Ludhiana and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (Nawanshahr) — have been selected for the dry run, aimed at testing the laid out mechanisms for the vaccination roll-out in the health system. In India, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has planned the dry run in Punjab and three other states — Andhra Pradesh, Assam, and Gujarat.

The dry would provide insights on any gaps or bottlenecks in vaccine distribution and its administration to the population so that those could be addressed before the commencement of the COVID-19 immunization drive, which would supported by the immunization partners — United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

In Ludhiana, seven centres have been set up, two of which are meant for the city and the remaining five for Jagraon, Rajkot, Machiwara, Payal and Khanna that fall in the district.

While the centres set-up in Ludhiana for the dry run are housed in Dayanand Medical College and Hospital and the Civil Hospital, the centres at other places are at the respective government hospitals.

All beneficiaries are to be compulsorily pre-registered on the CoWIN portal, which was formed by the Central Government for monitoring the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines, and photo IDs will be required for the same.

In Nawanshahr, during the dry run, stock was taken of the requisite infrastructure and uploading of data like the names of centres where the vaccination will be undertaken, assigning duties to the medical staff and information about the persons who will administer the vaccine along with their supervisors.

Nawanshahr District Immunisation Officer Dr Davinder Dhanda said that the necessary infrastructure at each centre included a waiting area, an injection room, and an observation room where the person undergoing ‘dummy vaccination’ on Tuesday during the dry run would be kept for half an hour.

As per Nawanshahr Civil Surgeon Dr Rajinder Prasad Bhatia, a special training workshop of personnel involved in the dry run exercise was held here on Sunday under the supervision of State Immunisation Officer Dr Balwinder Kaur.

Dr Bhatia said that the objective of the dry run of the COVID-19 vaccine was to introduce the prescribed methods for vaccination in the health system.

“The exercise will provide information about any internal deficiencies or obstacles before the commencement of COVID-19 vaccination campaign so that these problems could be addressed in time.

The main objective of this trial is to evaluate the functional feasibility of CoWIN portal,” he said.