Centre To Start Dry Run Of Its COVID-19 Vaccination Drive Across Four States; To Begin With Punjab On 28-29 December

Gearing up for mass vaccination programme against COVID-19 pandemic, the government is set to begin a dry run of its vaccination drive across the states of Punjab, Assam, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, reports Economic Times.

The dry run, which will begin with the state of Punjab on 28-29 December, will test the mechanisms of the vaccine roll-out across the nation and provide insights on any gaps and bottlenecks which would need to be addressed before the actual exercise begins.

In Punjab, the dry runs will take place in the districts of Ludhiana and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar with support from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The two-day dry run activity in the state will cover the entire gamut of steps involved in the vaccination process, which includes data upload, session site allocation, session site management with test beneficiaries, et cetera.

The development comes days after it had been reported that the Centre's drugs regulator could soon give approval to the emergency use authorisation for Covishield vaccine which has been developed by the University of Oxford and British pharma giant AstraZeneca, and is being manufactured by Pune based Serum Institute of India.