India begins nationwide Covid-19 vaccination dry run

India today began a nationwide dry run to check the preparedness for vaccinating people against Covid-19 and plug possible gaps in logistics, as the country with the second highest number of infections waits for the final approval of the jabs for an estimated 30 crore people to start with.

The dry run was underway in 116 districts, for which nearly one lakh vaccinators have been trained, the Health Ministry had said.

The mock drill process, in which 25 health workers will receive dummy vaccines at each spot, is meant to test the mechanisms and reveal loopholes, if any, in the system ahead of the actual vaccination drive which is expected later this month.

India's total Covid-19 caseload stands at 1,03,05,788 while the number of deaths due to the virus is 149,218, our New Delhi correspondent reports, quoting the health ministry data.

A key focus area of the dry run will be on management of any possible adverse events following immunization, the health ministry said in a statement.

The day-long dry run will also test the operational efficacy of portal Covid Intelligence Work Network (CoWIN) in a field environment, a portal to roll out and scale up the vaccination drive.

Indian Health Minister Harsh Vardhan himself monitored the dry run at three locations in Delhi and said there should be no misconceptions about the safety of the coronavirus vaccine that India plans to use as "everything has been checked in detail."

"There should be no rumours about the vaccine's safety...Everything has been checked in detail. Initially when the polio vaccine was rolled out (decades ago), even then rumours had floated. But once it went on the floor, all people were assured about the safety," he said in New Delhi while reviewing the progress of the drive," he said.

Senior officials of the Health Ministry apprised Vardhan recently on various improvements that have been made to make the pan-India dry-run a glitch free event such as increase in the number of telephone operators to answer every possible query from the teams on ground conducting the dry-run, among other issues.

India's drug regulator yesterday approved a coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University for emergency use, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.