THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The health department has begun analysing the drawbacks it faced while conducting a dry run of the Covid vaccine distribution on Saturday.
With the vaccine programme likely to be launched in short notice, the department has intimated the government that the state’s preparedness should be similar to that of an election.
Meanwhile, recoveries exceeded new cases in the state on Sunday. While 4,668 recovered from the illness, 4,600 tested positive.
Of the new cases, 4,039 contracted the disease through local transmission, the sources of infection of 451 patients were unknown, 61 were returnees and 49 were health workers.
Twenty-five more people succumbed to the illness on the day. The test positivity rate stood at 9.73 per cent, of the 47,291 samples that were processed.
Speaking about the vaccine programme, a health official said that the first phase, comprising around 3.13 lakh people -- health workers, medical students, Asha/Anganwadi workers and others – would take three months to complete.
“Each person will be administered the vaccine twice. Hence, proper arrangements should be made to avoid any confusion,” said the official.
During the dry run, health officials found a problem with the generation of the One-Time Password (OTP), which is a prerequisite while registering with the Covin app.
The Aadhaar-based authentication of the beneficiary is done using the OTP sent to the registered mobile number.