Centre warns against proxies during Covid-19 vaccination

Ram Sevak Sharma said that those being immunised must be uniquely and undeniably identified

As India prepares to launch the Covid-19 vaccination drive, the Centre has asked vaccinators to ensure that there are no proxies and only the identified beneficiaries are immunised.

Ram Sevak Sharma, Chairman of the Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management to combat Covid-19, held a virtual meeting with health secretaries of states, immunisation officers, among others to discuss feedback on the Co-WIN software from the three dry runs of the vaccination drive.

Sharma made it clear that capturing vaccination data in real time was “non-negotiatble”, while the same can be posted on the portal later if there are connectivity issues as highlighted by some states during the dry run.

He said the beneficiaries of the vaccine should be “uniquely and undeniably” identified as it would be used to create digital records of the immunisation and used for follow up.

Sharma also advised state representatives to urge the beneficiaries to seed their current mobile number with Aadhar for registration and consequent communication through SMS.

He also advised the States and UTs that the data collection should meet the purpose of facilitating work and that needs to be validated at field level.

India is set to embark on the Covid-19 vaccination drive from January 16, dubbed as the largest immunisation exercise in the world. In the first phase, one crore health workers are set to receive vaccine shots, followed by two crore frontline workers. Those above 50 years and those younger with co-morbidities will be next in line for vaccination. The government expects to vaccinate 30 crore people by July.

Nearly 80 lakh persons have already registered themselves on the Co-WIN software for the vaccination drive.

The government has approved two vaccine candidates, Covishield and Covaxin for use under restricted emergency authorisation. Covishield was developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca and is manufactured by Serum Institute of India, while Covaxin has been developed by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with National Institute of Virology.