Vaccination dry run will be conducted at 263 places in Karnataka today

Bengaluru: Vaccination dry run will be conducted at 263 places across the State, said Health Minister Dr K.Sudhakar on Thursday after a video conference with Union Health Minister Harshvardhan.

Speaking to the media, Sudhakar said, "a detailed discussion was held with the Union government regarding preparation and distribution of Covid vaccine. We are conducting a vaccination dry run at 263 places on Friday. Earlier it was planned at three locations in each district, but we have prepared to conduct at seven locations in each district. This dry run will be held at 24 district hospitals, 20 medical colleges, 43 taluk hospitals, 31 community health centres, 87 primary health centres, 30 urban primary health care centres and 28 private health centres across the State."

Harshvardhan on Thursday chaired a video conference of health ministers of all States regarding the Covid-19 vaccination dry run that will be conducted in all districts of the country on Friday. Dry run, an exercise for end-to-end testing of Covid- 19 vaccination process was held in five districts of Karnataka namely, Bengaluru (including BBMP), Belagavi, Kalburgi, Mysore and Shivamogga on January 2 as per the government of India guidelines.

According to the health department, Central government has provided 24 lakh syringes, 10 walk-in coolers, 4 walk-in freezers, 3,201 ILRs 3039 deep freezers, 3,312 cold boxes, 46,591 vaccine carriers and 2,25,749 ice packs.

"The Central government has also provided 64 large ILRs with the capacity of 225 litres each. Remaining 2 walk-in coolers and one walk-in freezer will be received from the Centre. Also 6.30 lakh healthcare workers serving in both government and private sector have registered for vaccination and the window for registration is still open," Sudhakar said, adding the Central government is providing one crore vaccines to all States. Police, health workers, defense personnel and Corona warriors will get the vaccine on priority.

Earlier in the day speaking to reporters, Sudhakar said, according to information a total 117 people who have returned from the UK to the state - 112 in Bengaluru and five in other districts- are yet to be traced and efforts were on in this regard. He said, Home, Health, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, Urban Development department officials in Bengaluru and across the State have been working tirelessly to trace them and added that the government was not hiding any numbers.

"Many of them (yet to be traced) hold foreign passports," he said, adding that also more than 1,000 people who have come (the UK to state's airports) are from other states and those states have been informed to trace and do necessary testing. Noting that so far 2,523 people who have come from the UK have undergone tests, the minister said, including 40 returnees and 25 of their contacts so far a total of 65 people had tested COVID positive during RT-PCR test. Among the 65 people, 10 have been confirmed with infection by UK strain after genomic sequencing tests and they are undergoing treatment.