All states will begin the dry run for Covid-19 vaccination from January 2. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting of the Union Health Ministry on Thursday.

Earlier, a two-day dry run to assess the readiness of the mechanism laid out for the Covid-19 immunisation drive was successfully conducted in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Assam, the Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday. Field feedback on the first day of the dun run was reviewed on December 29 through video conferencing with state and district programme officers by the joint secretary (Public Health).

"All the states expressed satisfaction in terms of operational approach and use of IT platform to ensure transparency and effective monitoring of vaccination processes expected to cover a large number of people across the country.

"Additional suggestions on IT platform were also noted for further enhancement of Co-WIN platform. Detailed insights and feedback obtained will help enrich the operational guidelines and IT platform, and will strengthen the Covid-19 vaccination roll-out plan," the ministry said.

AIIMS Delhi Director Dr Randeep Guleria on Wednesday said that India will have the Covid-19 vaccine within days.

Terming the approval for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for use in the UK as a "big step forward" he said, "This is very good news that AstraZeneca got approval for its vaccine by UK regulatory authorities. They have robust data and in India and the same vaccine is being developed by the Serum Institute of India. This is a big step forward not only for India but many parts of the world."