The central government is gearing up for the dry run of COVID-19 vaccine across four states - Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat and Punjab next week. 

 

Each state will plan it in two districts and preferably in five session type settings e.g. district hospital, CHC/PHC, urban site, private health facility, rural outreach etc. This will exercise enable end-to-end mobilisation and testing of COVID-19 vaccination process (except the vaccine) and check the usage of Co-WIN in field environment

 

To strengthen the capacity of human resource for COVID-19 vaccine introduction and roll-out, detailed training modules have been developed for different categories of vaccine handlers and administrators including medical officers, vaccinators, alternate vaccinators, cold chain handlers, supervisors, data managers, ASHA coordinators and all others involved in the implementation process at different levels. 

 

The training includes all operational aspects of training like organization of vaccination sessions, use of Co-WIN IT platform for management of the entire vaccination process, deployment of HR cold chain preparedness, management of adverse events,  communications and intersectoral coordination, biomedical waste management, infection prevention protocols etc.

 

2,360 participants were trained during national level training of trainers which comprised state immunization officers, cold chain officers, IEC officials, development partners etc. 

 

As on date, the state level training had been completed in all states/UTs with participation of more than 7,000 district level trainees, except Lakshadweep which will conduct it on 29th December 2020. Cascading down, 681 districts (49,604 trainees) have completed the training of medical officers on operational guidelines. Vaccination team training has been completed in 1,399 out of 17,831 blocks/ planning units. 

 

To facilitate redressal of queries on COVID-19 vaccination and Co-WIN portal related queries, national 1075 and state 104 Helpline capacity has also been strengthened to address queries beyond their routine support.