C'garh's two-day dry run of COVID-19 vaccination concludes

A two-day dry run for assessmentof distribution and administration of COVID-19 vaccine in 21districts of Chhattisgarh concluded on Friday, a healthofficial said.

The drill was successful and officials were told toaddress the shortcomings if any, state Immunization Officer DrAmar Singh Thakur told PTI.

The dry run was held in Balod, Raigarh, Balodabazar,Bemetara, Dhamtari, Gariaband, Janjgir-Champa, Kabirdham,Korba, Mahasamund and Mungeli districts on Friday, he said.

The exercise was conducted in Balrampur, Bijapur,Dantewada, Jashpur, Kanker, Kondagaon, Korea, Narayanpur,Sukma and Surajpur districts on Thursday.

''Two centres were set up in each of the 21 districtswhere 25 people, including health care personnel, underwentdummy vaccination. After being administered dummy vaccines,they were made to sit in an observation room for 30 minutes,''Dr Thakur said.

''Activities like cold chain management, vaccinesupply, storage and logistics were also examined during thedry run along with the time taken in administering vaccines toone person from registration in the Co-WIN application,'' hesaid.

Reports on the dry run will be submitted by January 9,he said.

Last week, a dry run was held in Raipur and six otherdistricts, he said.

''Once the vaccine is available, 2.53 lakh health carepersonnel will be administered it in the first phase of theroll-out,'' the official added.

As on Thursday, Chhattisgarh's COVID-19 caseload stoodat 2,86,596, of which 2,74,283 people have recovered and 3,454have died.