Technical glitches on CO-WIN platform continue on day two of vaccination drive

Issues with Co-WIN (Covid-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network) application — designed to streamline the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines — continued to persist on day two of the ongoing inoculation drive. Officials at nearly all vaccination sites in the district said that they were unable to access the beneficiary data on the platform on Monday and had to resort to keeping a manual record of individuals receiving the vaccine and then updating it later on the platform.

“We are facing multiple issues. In some cases, the beneficiaries are not receiving automated text messages despite being registered on the Co-WIN, so we have to call them up personally and remind them to take their shot. At some sites, vaccination officers are unable to log in, or the portal is too slow even if they are able to login,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurugram.

“Officials at the state level are aware of the issue. They will discuss it and get back to us by Wednesday. If not, then we will have to change our strategy for the next round,” Yadav added. He did not comment on whether the glitches in the app have directly impacted the Gurugram’s coverage of the vaccine, which did not meet its target for Monday. Out of the target of inoculating 4,836 people, authorities could only vaccinate a total 2,881, thereby managing to meet slightly over 59% of its target.

Health department staff at multiple vaccination sites in the district said they had anticipated that issues with Co-WIN — which were first reported on Saturday — would not be resolved in time for Monday’s drive. “We came prepared with the printouts of beneficiaries. Administering the vaccines has actually been much faster today since we aren’t dealing with the app,” said Dr Pankaj, who only gave his first name and is in charge at a session site in Palam Vihar in Sector 9.

However, according to a medical officer at a session site in Wazirabad, maintaining a manual record of data is not feasible. “It may be faster at the point of care because the scale of the drive is still small. These issues will cause a lot of confusion when the drive is rolled out on a larger scale. There is also room for error in recording people’s details manually, so we have to be extra careful. This will ultimately mean more work for us,” said Dr Ashima, who also gave only her first name.