Another dry run for COVID vaccination roll-out in Delhi; AIIMS, Safdarjung, Apollo among sites

The second dry run for the COVID-19 vaccination will be conducted in Delhi on Friday. The first dry run for COVID-19 vaccination roll-out was held in Delhi on January 2.

New Delhi: The authorities will on Friday conduct the second dry run for the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out in Delhi that will span across several districts of the national capital, officials said.

The districts include South Delhi, South East Delhi and North West Delhi and New Delhi, they said.

The first dry run for COVID-19 vaccination roll-out was held in Delhi on January 2 for which three sites were chosen across the national capital.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had reviewed the exercise at a dispensary in Daryaganj, and said COVID-19 vaccine will be provided to people in the national capital for free once it arrives, and asserted that the city government has made all preparations for the vaccination drive.

The previous three sites were GTB Hospital Shahdara, Urban Primary Health Centre, Daryaganj, and Venkateshwar Hospital, Dwarka.

Officials on Thursday said 10 vaccination centres have been chosen in South Delhi district for the dry run, and the sites include AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital, Pt Madan Mohan Malaviya Hospital, Pushpwati Singhania Hospital and Research Institute.

In South-East district, 19 sites have been chosen across three sub-divisions.

These sites include Batra Hospital, Fortis Hospital, Escorts Hospital, National Heart Institute, Holy Family Hospital, Apollo Hospital and MCW Gautampuri.

In North-West District, the 12 sites chosen for the exercise include Max Hospital and Fortis Hospital, both at Shalimar Bagh; Saroj Hospital, Jaipur Golden Hospital, and BSA Hospital, officials said.

Four sites have chosen in the New Delhi district, including NorthernRailway central hospital and Fortishospital, Vasant Kunj.

The Union health minister chaired an online meeting with health ministers of all states and union territories regarding COVID-19 vaccination dry run to be conducted on January 8 in all districts of the country, according to the bulletin issued by the Delhi health department on Thursday.

India's drugs regulator has approved Oxford COVID-19 vaccine Covishield, manufactured by the Serum Institute, and indigenously developed Covaxin of Bharat Biotech for restricted emergency use in the country.

It paves the way for the roll-out of at least two vaccines in the country in the coming days.

A total of 1,000 vaccination centres will be set up in Delhi. And, about600 centres will be set up in the first phase, for which work is underway in full swing.

At every vaccination centre, there will be multiple booths, each to take a maximum of 100 people, officials said on Wednesday.

There will be a nodal officer at each vaccination centre, officials said.

COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network or CoWIN app and its ecosystem will be used to manage and scale up the massive vaccination drive that is expected to begin soon across the country.

Everything will be fed to the database in real-time. Also, the person after being vaccinated will be kept under observation for any AEFI (adverse events following immunisation).

Delhi Health Minister Jain on Saturday said the city government had so far made preparations to vaccinate one lakh people in a day.

The Delhi government is fully prepared to receive, store and administer COVID-19 vaccine to 51 lakh priority category persons in the city in the first phase of vaccination, the minister had said.

These include healthcare workers, who will be first to receive, followed by frontline workers, people aged above 50 and those below 50 years but with co-morbidities, he added.

Vaccination centres will either be hospitals or facilities linked to hospitals.

As part of the first phase, about three lakh healthcare workers and nearly six lakh frontline workers, totalling about nine lakh, will be the first ones to get the vaccine.

PTI