Vaccination against the world’s largest Covid will start soon in India, preparations similar to the elections are underway; details here

India Covid 19 Vaccination Update: Election-like preparations are underway as India prepares to vaccinate frontline healthcare workers, essential workers, and the identified immunosuppressed population against the coronavirus. Revealing details of the preparations, Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that after completing the training of more than 2,000 teacher trainers nationwide, the same process is taking place at the state level and district in more than 700 districts across the country. Health worker lists have been created and documents will be uploaded to the COVID platform, Dr. Vardhan said on the first day of 2021.

“Just as we prepare during elections, in the same way we need to train each member of all medical teams in a responsible manner. The procedure is similar to holding elections where the team is also trained in a stand, ”said the Union’s Health Minister.

In order to prepare for the deployment of the COVID19 vaccine across the country, all State and Union Territory governments will conduct the trial on January 2. The Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has already chaired a high-level meeting to review the readiness at the session sites for COVID-19 vaccination with other senior officials from the Union Ministry of Health, the Mission Directors of the National Health Mission and the health administrators of all states or UT via videoconference.

The dry run process is scheduled to take place in all state capitals at at least 3 session sites. Some states will also include districts that are located in difficult terrain or have poor logistical support. Maharashtra and Kerala are likely to schedule the drill in major cities in addition to their capital, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a statement.

Why is the dry run process required?

The purpose of the trial of execution for the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccine is to assess the operational feasibility in using the Co-WIN application in the field setting, test the links between planning and implementation, and identify challenges and the way forward before actual implementation. . This is also expected to give confidence to program managers at various levels, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

The planning for the introduction of the vaccine will be carried out according to the Operational Guidelines issued by the Ministry on December 20, 2020. For each of the three Session Sites, the Medical Officer in charge in question will identify 25 beneficiaries of the proof, that they will be health workers. States and UT have been asked to ensure that the data for these beneficiaries is uploaded to Co-WIN. These beneficiaries will also be available on the session site for the drill. The states and UT will prepare the facilities and users to be created in the Cowin app, including uploading the beneficiary data from health care workers (HCW), according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Since vaccine administrators will play an important role in the vaccination process, training of trainers and those who will administer the vaccine has begun in several states. Some 96,000 vaccinators have been trained for this purpose. Up to 2,360 participants have been trained in the National Training of Trainers and more than 57,000 participants trained in district level training in more than 710 districts, according to details shared by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

State governments are expanding helpline 104 to be used in addition to 1075 for any questions related to vaccines or software. The orientation and capacity building of Call Center executives have been carried out in the States and UT, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

An important focus of the trial will be the management of any possible adverse event post-immunization (AEFI). The drill will include simultaneous monitoring and review at the block and district level and preparation of comments. The State Working Group will review the comments and share them with the Union Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

Between December 28 and 29, the first round of the drill took place in two districts of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, and Punjab. A total of five session sites with 25 beneficiaries each were identified. No major problems in operational aspects were observed during this trial. All states expressed confidence in the IT platform and operational guidelines for large-scale program implementation, the central government said.