Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope today said that the state will join the second nationwide dry run to be conducted in every district of the state tomorrow.
 

The Minister said a dry run will be conducted to check the preparedness of the mechanism rolled out for the vaccination exercise. He said, cold storage facilities and supply chains are being set up in Maharashtra, which is ready to launch the mass vaccination. Mr. Tope said the mock drill will be helpful for the state to see whether the system developed for mass vaccination is working properly on not.

 
On the availability of COVID-19 vaccine, Mr. Tope said, the Centre might inform the State Government in the next seven days about the large scale availability of the dosages. He said, there are some clarifications about the approved vaccines as they have been cleared for use citing the emergency situation.

Commenting on the cost of a vaccine, he said that the Centre should provide the vaccine free of cost to those living below the poverty line. He said, the data of 7,90,000 health workers in Maharashtra, including those employed in government and private sectors, is already uploaded on the CO-WIN application developed for the mass vaccination.

The Central and State Government have already decided to administer vaccines free of cost to health and frontline workers in the first phase.