Countrywide COVID-19 vaccine Dry Run
Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has notified that a country-wide COVID-19 vaccination exercise will be conducted in all States and Union Territories on January 8. This will be a mock drill for COVID-19 vaccination.
Key Points
- As per the ministry, this mock vaccination drive will help in efficient planning and management for vaccine delivery in each district of all States and UTs of the country.
- Under the mock drill, each district will identify three types of session sites, same as the previous dry run including a private health facility, public health facility, and rural or urban outreach sites.
- The Drug Control General of India (DCGI) has already given emergency-use approval to two COVID-19 vaccines in India namely Covishield and Covaxin.
- In order to ease the vaccination process, the Health Ministry has also developed a software Co-WIN, for tracking the beneficiaries for the COVID-19 vaccine, real-time data related to vaccine stocks, and their storage temperature.
- CoWIN will assist the programme managers across all levels during the vaccination sessions.
- A 24×7 dedicated call centre has also been set up for any kind of technical queries related to Co-WIN.
- Around 1,70,000 vaccinators and 3 lakh vaccination team members have been trained on the process to be followed at the vaccination sites.
- This training includes cold chain and logistics management, verification of beneficiary, vaccination, bio-medical waste management, and reporting on Co-WIN software.
Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare cautions about fake CoWIN Apps
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has recently cautioned the people against the fake CoWIN apps on the app stores. The ministry has clarified that the CoWIN app, registration on which is required to get the COVID-19 vaccine, is not live yet. The ministry has warned the people that they should not download any such fake apps and share their personal information.