As India gears up to launch the world's largest immunisation drive, almost all states and Union Territory (UT) governments, including the national capital, on Saturday conducted a dry run at 285 session sites spread across 125 districts to assess the ability and readiness of authorities to administer COVID-19 shots to hundreds of millions of people, including many in remote corners of the country.

Ahead of the actual vaccination drive, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) conducted the nationwide mock drill at 285 session sites to test the end-to-end planned operations and the mechanism that has been set up to ensure smooth conduct of the COVID-19 vaccination.

This dry run of the vaccination drive spread across 125 districts covers all states and UTs having adequate representation of urban and rural districts along with hard-to-reach areas, said an MoHF statement.

Delhi, Punjab and Haryana along with Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Gujarat were among many states and UTs who conducted a dry run and mock drills for COVID-19 vaccination earlier in the day, aimed at testing the laid out mechanisms for the vaccination roll-out in the health system.

The Centre had directed earlier to conduct a dry run by all state and UTs on January 2 to test the linkages between planning and implementation, and to identify the challenges.

As per the guidelines issued by the MoHFW, all states selected their particular areas and districts to hold the dry run exercise at various government medical college, hospitals, medical centres and the community health centres.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and World Health Organization (WHO) supported the drive, officials said.

(IANS)