Covid-19 vaccine dry run conducted in Hyderabad 

Being organised as part of the nationwide Covid-19 vaccine dry run, the mock drill to administer the vaccine was taken up at Gandhi Hospital and two primary healthcare centres at Nampally and Tilaknagar.

Hyderabad: The Covid-19 vaccine dry run, aimed at understanding practical difficulties during the actual roll-out and to address other logistical difficulties, if any, was conducted in three Government healthcare facilities and one private hospital in Hyderabad on Saturday.

Being organised as part of the nationwide Covid-19 vaccine dry run, the mock drill to administer the vaccine was taken up at Gandhi Hospital and two primary healthcare centres at Nampally and Tilaknagar. Yashoda Hospitals in Somajiguda was the sole private healthcare facility in the State that was selected by the MOHFW to conduct the vaccine dry run.

Apart from testing the Covid-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network (CO-WIN) software, the trained vaccinators also conducted mock administration of the vaccine to healthcare workers in the urban primary healthcare facilities. In the mock drill, on an average, each healthcare facility administered 20 to 35 frontline workers with the vaccine.

At Gandhi Hospital, the entire dry run of the Covid-19 vaccine was monitored by Director of Medical Education (DME) Dr. K Ramesh Reddy.

“Like any vaccine, the Covid-19 vaccine is also expected to throw up all kinds of adverse reactions. To be able to handle such situations, we have provided special training to our healthcare workers to spot a check-list of symptoms. This dry run is helpful in identifying any flaws in the system so that they can be ironed out before the actual roll-out of the vaccine,” Dr. Ramesh Reddy said.

So far, 10,000 public healthcare workers across the State have been trained to provide or administer the Covid-19 vaccine. Each trained vaccinator will be administering the vaccine to 100 individuals in a single day, which will work out to vaccinating 10 lakh individuals in a single day across the State,” Dr. Ramesh Reddy pointed out.

Senior health officials said that all the arrangements to ensure the presence of cold chain management from the time the vaccine vial starts its journey from the manufacturing unit to the moment when it is administered has been addressed by the State.

Unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is approved in the United States and United Kingdom and needs a cold chain management of minus 80 degree Celsius to 60 degree Celsius, the Oxford-Serum Institute vaccine, which has received the green signal from the Indian regulators, can be transported at 2 degree Celsius to 8 degree Celsius.

“For the last few months, we have been making all arrangements to ensure adequate infrastructure is available to ensure the vaccines are stored at the right temperature. Our cold chain management and vaccinators are ready to roll-out the vaccine, as soon as it is available,” said Dr. Ramesh Reddy.

The District Immunisation Officers (DIO) of Hyderabad also conducted the Covid vaccine dry run at Yashoda Hospitals on Saturday morning. A team of doctors from the office of the District Health and Medical Officer (DM&HO) and DIO conducted the vaccine dry run, which started at about 10 am and continued for an hour at Yashoda Hospitals.

The health authorities also interacted with the health care workers of the hospital and made them aware of the need to observe individuals who received the vaccine for at least an hour for any kind of adverse reaction. The mock vaccination drive was conducted for 15 health care workers at Yashoda Hospitals.

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