Co-WIN portal’s ‘transfer stock’ option makes vaccine sharing transparent

This increases accountability of vials and enables greater sharing between hospitals, instead of waiting for the manufacturer to supply

With the transfer stock option on the Co-WIN portal introduced just two months ago, several private hospitals in the city are able to give their vaccine vials to smaller hospitals in need.

Introduced on August 1, the transfer stock option requires the transferring hospital to upload information to the Co-WIN portal such as the CVC (Covid vaccination centre) ID, vaccine brand, batch number, dose per vial, total vials, total doses, number of vials transferred and total number of doses transferred.

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This has vastly improved accountability for the vials and enabled hospitals to share the unused doses instead of waiting for the manufacturer to supply.

Suguna Hospital’s head Dr Ravindra Ramaiah recently transferred 1,000 vaccine doses to a neighbourhood hospital. He had earlier bought 1,350 doses from a hospital that could not exhaust the vials due to low demand but had to ensure paper trail to establish documentary proof of the vials’ origin.

“Now, with the batch number also being uploaded when the transfer happens, in case of an adverse reaction or non-maintenance of cold chain, or suspected counterfeit vaccines, the source of the vials is known. If there are fake vaccine vials in the market or not-of-standard-quality ones, we’ll know where it came from,” said Dr Ramaiah.

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Apollo Hospitals Jayanagar recently received 25,000 vials from Chennai, which it dispersed to the group’s home care division in Bengaluru, besides sending some stock to nursing homes in the vicinity.

“If there is a delay in supply by (vaccine manufacturer) Serum Institute of India, this system ensures interoperability of vaccine vials,” the hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Govindaiah Yatheesh said.

“After this feature was introduced, everything was officially on record,” he added. “Earlier, if we shared our vials with Rajshekar Hospital or Prashanth hospital, they used our CVC ID. Our hospital staff had to vaccinate the beneficiaries. Now, we just transfer the stock.”

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Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (PHANA) president Dr H M Prasanna said his hospital gave 1,300 vaccine doses to the diagnostics chain Care and Cure and another 800 doses to Brookefield Hospital.

“Small players must wait for 15 days for supplies from the manufacturer,” he said. “Across six zones of Bengaluru, hospitals are on WhatsApp groups where they request for vials and those who have stock document the transfer on Co-WIN.”

An Aster Hospital group spokesperson noted that the transfer option has cut down vaccine vials wastage. “By using the Co-WIN portal, the hospital can track visibility of stock supplies real-time,” he said.

“Vaccine availability is monitored and managed through the stock transfer option where hospitals with additional vials share it with other hospitals in the group.”

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