India to conduct nationwide COVID-19 vaccine dry run on January 2

• The Indian Health Ministry has announced that the country will conduct a nationwide dry run of COVID-19 vaccination program on January 2.
• The exercise will be conducted across all the state capitals and certain districts where the logistical support is lacking.
• The Health Ministry claims that it has trained around 96,000 administrators for the exercise.
• Maharashtra and Kerala are likely to schedule the dry run in major cities other than their Capital.
  

India is set to conduct a nationwide dry run of its COVID-19 vaccination program on January 2. The exercise will be conducted in all the state capitals — at least three session sites.

Certain districts, where the terrain is difficult or the logistical support is sub-par, will also be included.

Maharashtra and Kerala, two states with the highest COVID-19 caseload in the country and the number of cases still increasing, are likely to schedule the dry run in major cities other than their capital.

State	Number of cases	New cases in last 24 hours
Maharashtra	1.93 million	3,537
Karnataka	919,000	973
Andhra Pradesh	882,000	349
Tamil Nadu	817,000	945
Kerala	756,000	6,268

Source: COVID-19 Data Repository by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University

Putting vaccination processes in place
The first round of the dry run was conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Punjab between December 28 and 29 two districts each with five session sites per district. “No major issues were observed in the operational aspects during this dry run,” said the government.

States have been asked to ensure physical verification of all proposed sites for adequacy of space, logistical arrangements, internet connectivity, electricity, safety and other primary requirements.

Each model session site that will be set up has to have a separate entry and exit in a ‘three-room set-up’ with adequate space outside for awareness generation activities.

The dry run will also equip the states and UT’s to manage the vaccine supply, storage and logistics including cold chain management, according to the Indian government.

The Health Ministry claims that it has trained around 96,000 vaccine administrations for the exercise.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan chaired a high-level meeting to review the preparedness at the designated sites for COVID-19 vaccination on December 31 with the administrators of all state and union territories (UTs), National Health Mission managing directors and Principal Secretaries of Health.

“With the objective for the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine across the country, the Central Government has asked all states and UTs to ensure effective preparedness for the vaccine rollout,” said the Government of India.