COVID vaccination: Dry run held at Hindu Rao Hospital, other civic facilities

New Delhi: Another dry run for the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out was held at the Hindu Rao Hospital and a few other civic facilities in the city on Wednesday, officials said. North Delhi Mayor Jai Prakash said, all guidelines that will be followed when vaccination begins, were followed during the exercise.

"In NDMC area, Hindu Rao Hospital and Kasturba Hospital were chosen for the dry run that took place this morning. I inspected the arrangement made at Hindu Rao," he said.

Prakash said 34 people were given dummy vaccines at the Hindu Rao Hospital.

In the reception area in the hospitals, a waiting zone has been made, where people will come and after verification of their names through CoWIN app, they will be taken one by one for vaccination.

COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network or CoWIN app and its ecosystem will be used to manage and scale up the massive vaccination drive that is expected to begin soon across the country.

"An emergency room is there and people will be told about the vaccine and its probable side effects before vaccination, and will be under observation if they exhibit any complications," Prakash said.

Both the hospitals fall under the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC).

"Hindu Rao has 900 beds and the Swine Flu ward, having 50 beds, has been earmarked for the vaccination centre there," he said, adding out of 1,000 such centres that will eventually be set up, over 600 would fall in NDMC areas.

Official of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation also said, a dry run was scheduled for Wednesday. More details were awaited.

Following sites in SDMC areas have been chosen for the exercise -- MCW Hari Nagar; Polyclinic Madipur: MCW Bijawasan; MH Sriniwas Puri; MCW Fatehpur Beri; and MCW Defence Colony, officials said.

The first dry run for the coronavirus vaccination roll-out was held on Saturday at three sites across the national capital, officials said.

The activity was done to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Saturday had said COVID-19 vaccine will be provided to people in the national capital for free once it arrives, and asserted that the city government had made all preparations for the vaccination drive.

Work is underway in full swing to set up the centres for COVID-19 vaccination in the national capital, with 500 such units to come up in the first phase, even as the storage facility is getting equipped with freezers to hold vaccines in a temperature range of 2-8 degrees Celsius.

A total of 1000 vaccination centres will be set up. And, 500-600 centres will be set up in the first phase.

India's drugs regulator has 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.

As part of the first phase, about three lakh healthcare workers and nearly six lakh frontline workers, totalling about nine lakh, will be the first ones to get the vaccine.

The Delhi government is fully prepared to receive, store and administer COVID-19 vaccine to 51 lakh priority category persons in the city in the first phase of vaccination, Jain had said.

These persons include healthcare workers, frontline workers, people aged above 50 and those below 50 years but with co-morbidities.

Delhi recorded 442 fresh COVID-19 cases, and 12 new fatalities on Tuesday, even as the positivity rate slumped at 0.55 per cent, authorities said.

The infection tally in the city stood at over 6.27 lakh and death toll mounted to 10,609, they said.