The dry run of COVID-19 vaccine administration was completed at primary health centres in Belagavi, Hukkeri, and Kittur on Saturday.
Vaccine doses, placebo, and water were not used for the experiment. The exercise was aimed at practising and repeating the process of registration, admission, administration, and follow-up of volunteers and target groups.
A total of 75 randomly chosen subjects — 25 in each of these government hospitals — were called to the hospitals and the process of administration was recorded using the CoWin tracking mobile application.
M.L. Tukkar, district surveillance officer, said the dry run was a success, with doctors and staff following protocol and the SOP set down by the Union government. “We have collected all the data necessary to start a full-fledged operation of administration. We have calculated the space needed for immunisation and the time taken for each case,” he said. This is the first time the vaccination drive is being done on an digital platform, without using paper.
M.G. Hiremath, Deputy Commissioner, said that the district has the cold storage and transport capacity to store and use around eight lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccine. In the first phase, as many as 28,000 corona warriors will be given the vaccine, he said.
