2nd mock drill of Covid vaccination: 25 health workers get dummy shots

Kolkata: The second mock drill for Covid vaccination passed off smoothly at over 69 venues of Bengal on Friday. Around 25 health workers received dummy vaccines at each site during the mock drill, which was scheduled to check the mechanism and plug the loopholes ahead of the real drive. The nationwide drill was held at over 736 districts across 33 States/Union Territories.

Other than North 24-Parganas, all the districts participated in the mock drill. There were 3 venues in each district. Senior health officials from the districts monitored the situation during the drive.

During the mock drills, the registration of the beneficiaries, their enrolment and verification was also conducted. CoWIN app would be used during the vaccination for capturing and uploading data. This application has been developed to inoculate millions of people against Coronavirus in a smooth way.

Aadhaar authentication and SMS confirming the vaccination are some of the key features of the app. The Centre has already cleared Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin for emergency use. It may be mentioned here that Covid vaccines are expected to arrive in the city on Friday night. The first mock drill in Bengal happened on January 2 along with many other states. Friday's mock drill was meant to test the operational feasibility of the CoWIN application in a field environment in all the other districts.

It also occurred in South Dinajpur. Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr Sukumar Dey, District Magistrate Nikhil Nirmal and health officials were present at the dry run conducted in the office of CMOH.

"25 health workers were involved in the dry run conducted. Around 18,000 names have already been included at the Covid portal as eligible recipients for vaccination at the initial stage," Dr Dey said.

He said as per criteria 3 establishments— Hili Rural hospital, Gangarampur Subdivisional hospital and Balurghat district hospital—covering rural, urban and district have been selected for the dry run.

Sources said the entire planning of the vaccination drive, including beneficiary registration, micro planning and vaccination at the planned session site was tested under the leadership of DM.