Vaccine Dry Run: What You Need To Know?

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) in its press release on 31st December 2020 stated that, the first round of the dry run was conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Punjab on 28-29th December 2020 in two districts each where five session sites with 25 beneficiaries each were identified.

2021 has finally come with good news that we all have had our eyes on since the COVID-19 pandemic flared up throughout the world. The Indian government has finally approved two COVID-19 vaccines, namely- Covishield and Covaxin for emergency use in India. But prior to it being used for the masses, a dry run is being conducted in almost all states of India. It can be considered as a mock drill for the vaccines, before launching the actual nationwide vaccination program. It will basically test the preparedness of the authorities and to test if there are any loopholes in the complete process.

No major issues were observed in the operational aspects during this dry run. All States expressed confidence in the operational guidelines and IT platform for large scale program implementation. Apart from this, it also mentioned that the dry run for the Covid-19 vaccine will be conducted at three sites in all states and Union territories of India as per the guidelines of MoHFW, on 2nd January 2021.

What Is a Vaccine Dry Run?

A vaccine dry run is a process to look at the possible loopholes that the authorities may have overlooked during the planning and implementation process. Therefore, before conducting the vaccination process for the whole population, a mock immunization process is conducted on a sample of people to correct the errors in the process if any.

According to, the objective of dry run includes:

• Assess operational feasibility of using Co-WIN* application in a field environment;
• Test linkages between planning, implementation and reporting mechanisms;
• Identify challenges and guideway forward prior to actual implementation; and
• Provide confidence to program managers at various levels

*Co-Win refers to the COVID-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network, an application launched by the Indian government for vaccine registration. However, it is still in the pre-production stage and is not yet functional.

Method of Dry run

• The medical officer in-charge will identify 25 healthcare workers who will be test beneficiaries.
• Beneficiaries will be pre-identified and they will be informed about the name of the vaccinator and the time of the immunization, in advance via SMS.
• Post vaccination, the beneficiaries will be administered for the next 30 minutes to address any adverse event if any.
• After this, a report will be prepared and will be reviewed by the State Task Force (STF) and will be shared with the Union Health Ministry along with the feedback.

The States/UTs will also ensure physical verification of all proposed sites for adequacy of space, logistical arrangements, Internet connectivity, electricity and safety for vaccination.