Medical officers and other staff of Jharkhand engaged with vaccinating people against Covid-19 will on Saturday conduct dry runs in Ranchi and four or five more districts on Saturday to gauge preparedness and fix loopholes ahead of the nationwide immunisation campaign.

While the Union health ministry has called for dry runs across all state capitals, the Jharkhand health department has decided to conduct independent dry runs in more districts.

Besides Ranchi, health department sources said, dry runs have been planned in Pakur, Palamau, East Singhbum and Chatra. “Deliberations are still on and the number of districts may increase or decrease by one. At each chosen site, a team of four officials will conduct dry runs in two-hour windows. Besides vaccination, we shall also be evaluating crowd handling capabilities at specific sites,” said an official.

In Ranchi district, dry runs are expected to be conducted in five places, including Sadar Hospital and health centres in Bundu and Ratu and a few rural blocks. “Each vaccination booth will have three rooms—one for registration, the second for vaccination and the third for monitoring the patient for 30 minutes to an hour,” said an official of the district administration.

State health secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni said the purpose of the drive was to test the operational feasibility of Co-Win, a software application designed for the Ccovid-19 vaccination campaign, identify grey areas if any and plug gaps.

“Once the Covid-19 vaccine is out, it will be a Herculean task to undertake safe immunisation. At the same time, it is equally important to adhere to all protocols and meet specified targets in a proper time frame. Hence, the government is initiating the drive to test the preparedness of all those tasked with vaccination work,” he said.

The state health department has identified about a dozen areas for monitoring capabilities, including planning for vaccination, usage of Co-Win application, mapping of sites, uploading of data, deployment of vaccinators, mobilisation of logistics from the storage site to the designated centre.

The state health department is understood to have prepared a panel of 7,000 vaccinators who have been provided training. This apart, the state has readied 275 cold chain points, while a state-level vaccine warehouse has been set up at Namkum (Ranchi) in addition to existing regional warehouses in Palamau and Deoghar.