New Delhi: The second nationwide Covid-19 vaccine dry run on Friday was very much required to sort out the shortcomings that were noticed during the previous dry run, said senior health expert and Indian Medical Association (IMA) secretary-general Dr Jayesh M Lele.
Days before India go for a formal rollout of Covid-19 vaccine, as many as 736 districts across 33 states and UTs witnessed a second dry run with 'perfection'.Officials in the Health Ministry told ETV Bharat that the dry run was overwhelming with the participation of all stakeholder.
On January 2, India witnessed its first nationwide dry run.
"The shortcomings over the transport of vaccine have been sorted out during today's dry run. It has also helped us to understand which are the important areas that need to be looked upon during the formal dry run," said Dr Lele.
Concerned officials who will be engaged during the formal vaccination process have also got the first-hand experience of the Co-WIN app, which is being designed to keep overall monitoring on the entire vaccination process.
Through the government had not launched the Co-WIN app till date, officials said that this will be made effective when the vaccination will start for the general population.
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Early, next week vaccination will start for 3 crore health care workers and frontline workers including security forces.
"Till date, Co-WIN app is in the testing stage. We will make use of this app at an appropriate time," said Dr Lele.
Referring to the availability of vaccine for the Indian population, Dr Lele said, "We have two vaccines at present. However, vaccines like SputnikV, Pfizer may also come for use any time soon. And as many vaccines, we have, it will be good for us."
He further said that apart from immunizing people with Covid-19 vaccines, the government is also looking into the hard immunity factor amongst people.
"It's a fact that people in several places across India have developed hard immunity. Studies have shown that people have developed antibodies without being affected by the Covid19 pandemic severely," said Dr Lele.
Meanwhile, officials in the Health Ministry said that the second dry run of Covid19 vaccination fine-tuned the entire process.
"The dry run familiarise the state, district, block and hospital-level officers on all aspects of Covid19 roll out. This has also helped the administrators in strengthening the linkages between planning, implementation, reporting mechanism among others," officials said.
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