The Indian government on Friday said that it has planned a dry run for the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat and Punjab next week as a step to prep up before the actual thing takes off.

According to the Health Ministry, each state will plan the dry run in two districts and preferably in different session type settings, for example, district hospital, urban site, private health facility, rural outreach etc.

"This exercise will enable end-to-end mobilisation and testing of COVID-19 vaccination process and check the usage of Co-WIN in field environment," the ministry said in a statement.

It would also enable linkages between planning, implementation and reporting mechanisms and identify challenges and guide the way forward prior to actual implementation, including improvements that may be required in the envisaged process.

This will also provide hands-on experience to programme managers at various levels. This two-day activity is planned on December 28 and 29, and will include activities from the necessary data entries in Co-WIN to vaccine receipt and allocation to deployment of team members, mock drill of session sites with test beneficiaries to reporting and evening meeting.

The dry run will also include testing for cold storage and transportation arrangements for COVID-19 vaccine, management of crowd at the session sites with proper physical distancing.

An important focus of the dry run will be on management of any possible adverse events following immunisation (AEFI). In addition, adherence and management of infection control practices at the session site, to prevent disease transmission.

India has eight Covid-19 vaccine candidates, including three indigenous vaccines, under different stages of clinical trials which could be ready for authorization in the near future.

It includes AstraZeneca and Oxford university developed and Serum Institute of India manufactured Covishield, Covaxin by Bharat Biotech Limited, ZyCoV-D by Zydus Cadila and Russian vaccine candidate Sputnik-V.

The list also contains NVX-CoV2373 by SII, HGCO19 by Geneva, and two unlabeled vaccines-Recombinant Protein Antigen based vaccine by Biological E Limited-and Inactivated rabies vector platform by Bharat Biotech.

The government is gearing up for the rollout of Covid-19 vaccine across the country. As the vaccine administrators will play an important role in the vaccination process, training of trainers and those who shall administer the vaccine has been taken up across various states.

(IANS)