The two-day dry run for the Covid-19 vaccination in Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Gujarat has been successfully conducted, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Tuesday. The end-to-end dry run was conducted in Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh, Rajkot and Gandhinagar districts in Gujarat, Ludhiana and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar in Punjab and Sonitpur and Nalbari districts in Assam on December 28 and 29.

Specific teams were formed for various tasks by the district administration and activities such as uploading of dummy beneficiary’s data, session site creation, vaccine allocation, communication of vaccination details to vaccinators and beneficiaries and beneficiary mobilisation were carried out.

Field feedback on the first day of the run was reviewed today through video conferencing with state and district programme officers by Joint Secretary (Public Health). All states expressed satisfaction in terms of the operational approach and use of IT platforms to ensure transparency and effective monitoring of vaccination processes expected to cover a large number of people across the country.

India currently has eight Covid-19 vaccine candidates, including three indigenous vaccines, under different stages of clinical trials which could be ready for authorisation in near future. Serum Institute-Oxford’s Covishield, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Pfizer vaccine are in the fray for emergency use authorisation.

The central government plans to vaccinate nearly 30 crore people in the first phase of drive. It will be offered to one crore healthcare workers, along with 2 crore frontline and essential workers and 27 crore elderly, mostly above the age of 50 years with co-morbidities.