The central government organized a high-level meeting with states and Union territories on Thursday to review Vaccine progress in light of revised guidelines for the implementation of the National Covid Vaccination Program and recent notice. At the meeting chaired by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, states were urged to focus on second dose coverage among healthcare workers and frontline workers.
The Union Health Secretary also highlighted the low Vaccine coverage among healthcare workers and frontline workers, especially for the second dose, and called it “a cause of serious concern”.
He reiterated that universal coverage and comprehensive protection within this group is crucial to protect the healthcare response to the pandemic and that timely completion of the immunization schedule is important to provide comprehensive protection to people. beneficiaries.
According to an official statement, Bhushan also highlighted less than adequate private sector participation in the Covid19 vaccination campaign in Indian states or territories. “According to the revised guidelines, 25% of the vaccine stock can be purchased by private hospitals which can set up private CVCs to complement government efforts in furthering the universalization of the vaccination campaign. The limited presence of private hospitals and their uneven distribution were highlighted for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, etc. “, he added.
Meanwhile, states have also been made aware of changes to the CoWIN platform aimed at making it more effective as a backend management tool for the national coronavirus vaccination campaign. These modifications are:
• Corrections can be made in personal information (Name, YOB, Gender and photo ID number of the card used) by citizens requesting changes only in one of the two fields out of the four mentioned. These changes are only allowed once. Once updated, the old certificate will be deleted and it will no longer be possible to revert the changes.
• Changing the type of vaccine, date of vaccination, especially vaccination events not recorded in Co-WIN can be done with the help of District Immunization Officers (DIOs). These changes cannot be made by the users themselves, but the users must request the DIO.
• Functionality to label existing HVACs as urban and rural is also provided.
States were also made aware of the functionality of vaccine use. DIOs are authorized to modify / update Vaccine Usage Reports (VURs) submitted by vaccinators and make corrections, if necessary. Union States / Territories have been urged to thoroughly train vaccinators and DIOs to avoid data entry errors, the government said.
States have further been informed that the CoWIN platform is now available in 12 languages and is also equipped to register the unique UDID disability identity card. It was also pointed out that accounts can now be blocked for 24 hours if more than 1000 searches are made in 50 login sessions of 15 minutes each.
The government has also said that states can offer walk-in registrations for the age group over 45 sessions if on-site capacity is greater than 0. Walk-in sessions for the age group 18- 44 years can also be arranged if the “on-site dose 2” capacity is greater than 0. States have been advised to publicize this widely in CVCs.
