The district administration Ludhiana today successfully completed the dry run regarding the Covid 19 vaccine. Deputy Commissioner Mr Varinder Kumar Sharma informed that in district Ludhiana, the dry run was successfully conducted at 7 locations (one in each sub division) namely Civil Hospital Ludhiana, Dayanand Medical College & Hospital, Raikot, Jagraon, Machhiwara, Khanna and Payal. He said that on trial basis, 25 healthcare workers each, who had registered themselves on the government portal, were called at the 7 locations.He said that for the first phase, Ludhiana district has been one of the two districts (other being Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar) chosen by the government for administering the Covid 19 vaccine in Punjab.He said that this activity was basically aimed at testing the laid out mechanisms for COVID-19 vaccination roll-out in the health system. He said that during the dry run today, the end to end testing of COVID-19 vaccination process was successfully tested.The primary objective of the dry run included assessing the operational feasibility of using Co-WIN application in the field environment and to test linkages between planning.
Implementation and reporting mechanisms would identify challenges and guideway forward prior to actual implementation.The Deputy Commissioner informed that in the first phase, more than 30,000 healthcare workers (both government and private) of district Ludhiana, who have registered themselves on the government portal, would be administered the Covid 19 vaccine, followed by Aanganwari workers, people aged above 50 years, people below 50 years with comorbidities, and others.He clarified that this vaccine would not be available off the shelf for the time being and only people who have got themselves registered on the government portal would be covered under it. He said that upon registration, the beneficiaries would receive an SMS informing the date and place where the Covid 19 vaccine would be administered to them.He informed that initially, the dry run is proposed to be conducted in four states, namely Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Gujarat. He said that the immunisation partners, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), also supported this dry run activity.Later, he also chaired a review meeting regarding the same at Bachat Bhawan, here, where he thanked all the concerned officials for successfully carrying out the dry run of Covid 19 vaccine in district Ludhiana.