NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, JAN 5
A dry run to assess the readiness of the mechanism laid out for the COVID-19 immunisation drive, which is expected to begin soon, was conducted at Ahmedabad civil hospital on Tuesday, days after similar exercises were conducted in six districts of the state on separate occasions.
A total of 25 healthcare workers of the civil hospital underwent dummy vaccination in the old trauma centre, an official release said.
On Sunday, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) approved Oxford COVID-19 vaccine Covishield, manufactured by the Serum Institute, and indigenously developed Covaxin of Bharat Biotech for restricted emergency use in the country, paving the way for a massive inoculation drive.
On Tuesday, beneficiaries arrived at the designated spot in the Ahmedabad civil hospital after getting a system-generated message, showed their identity proofs to vaccinators and received the dummy vaccine, the release said.
After ”vaccination”, these beneficiaries were taken to a waiting room and were allowed to go after 30 minutes, as per the guidelines, it said.
The civil hospital has identified 7,000 staff members, including nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers, who will get the COVID-19 vaccine on priority once the Centre gives a green signal to the nationwide vaccination drive, as per the release.
Earlier, the state government had conducted similar dry runs in Gandhinagar and Rajkot districts on December 28 and 29, and in Anand, Valsad, Dahod and Bhavnagar districts on January 2.
The state government had last week said that it trained 16,000 vaccinators and created a cold chain infrastructure to store one crore vaccine doses.
