India News | Dry Run for COVID-19 Conducted in Chandigarh, Haryana's Panchkula District

Chandigarh, Jan 2 (PTI) Dry runs to check preparations for COVID-19 vaccination were held in Haryana's Panckula district and in the Union Territory of Chandigarh on Saturday, officials said.

The dry run in Haryana was conducted in Panchkula at four sites with two sites each in urban and rural settings, Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Rajeev Arora said.

"The sites in urban areas are in Sector-4 dispensary and Sector-8 dispensary, while in rural areas the sites are in Primary Health Centre-Kot and Primary Health Centre-Raipur Rani," he said in a statement.

The platform of the existing universal immunisation programme of the state, with enhanced capacity, will be used for providing COVID-19 vaccine, said the senior Haryana official.

The administration of the Union Territory of Chandigarh also carried out a dry run to test the preparedness for COVID-19 vaccine delivery here, officials said.

The Centre had said that dry run for COVID-19 vaccination would be conducted by all states and union territory administrations to test the linkages between planning and implementation, and to identify challenges.

The Haryana additional chief secretary for health said that the primary aim to conduct the dry run was to exercise end-to-end testing of COVID-19 vaccination roll out and identify challenges.

This will help in formulating detailed plans for actual implementation of the vaccine roll out and also give confidence to programme managers at various levels, he said.

The dry run will also help to monitor and review preparedness at the district and block levels and gather empirical data, Arora said.

Besides this, to ensure successful implementation of COVID-19 vaccine roll out, a dry run has been planned across Haryana on January 7 as well, he said.

In Chandigarh, the dry run was carried out at the Government Multi-Speciality Hospital Sector-16 and the Civil Hospitals at Sector 22 and Manimajra, the officials said.

The entire session was carried out under supervision of Amandeep Kang, Director Health Services, Chandigarh, with technical support from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), they said.

In Punjab, Patiala Deputy Commissioner Kumar Amit said the district would be the third after Ludhiana and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar where a dry run will be conducted to check preparations.

He said on Sunday, a dummy immunisation practice would be conducted at Patiala's Rajindra Hospital (Government Medical College), Sadbhavna Hospital and Community Health Centre, Shutrana.

In this regard, 15 vaccination teams were briefed about the whole process which they have to adopt on Sunday during the dry run, said Amit in a statement.

During the training session, experts from the UNDP and the WHO examined the modalities prescribed for introduction of COVID-19 vaccine in the health system.

The test link of the 'Co-Win' portal set up for the exercise, including the prescribed operation method, was explained in detail, officials said.

Earlier, a two-day a mock drill for the distribution and administration of COVID-19 vaccine in Ludhiana and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (Nawanshahr) concluded on Tuesday.

Before Saturday's nationwide exercise, dry runs had been planned by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Gujarat.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)