16K vaccine beneficiaries’ data missing from Co-Win portal in Ghaziabad, Noida

Data of over 8,000 people each in Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad who were vaccinated against Covid-19 does not reflect in the Co-WIN portal, said district officials

Data of over 8,000 people each in Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad who were vaccinated against Covid-19 does not reflect in the Co-WIN portal, said district officials.

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The data includes names of people, their vaccination dates and vaccination centre, among others. The Co-WIN portal is a central government-designed system to record and track vaccinations. If the data is missing, then people who registered on the app and got their first dose will not be able to track or get information on their second dose, which is essential to complete the vaccination.

The vaccination drive for senior citizens or those with co-morbidities, under phase-3 of the drive, began on March 1.

Ghaziabad chief medical officer (CMO) Dr N K Gupta said that the issue was discovered on Tuesday when they received a status report of their vaccinations drive for senior citizens till March 8. While the district record said it had vaccinated 14,832 people till then, the portal had recorded only 6,676.

Gautam Budh Nagar CMO Dr Deepak Ohri said they had vaccinated of over 14,000 in phase-3. But the system showed just 5,747.

“According to the portal figures sent to us from the state officials, we have covered only 7.14% of the 93,840 target for the month,” said Gupta. “But our records showed that it was closer to 16%.”

The Ghaziabad department suspect that hospitals may not be entering data onto the platform. The government officials met over the issue following which the CMO issued directions that supply of vaccine would be held back for hospitals if they do not update details over the portal.

“We have deployed officers to check details. It is possible that some hospitals may not be entering or updating records and it is a cause for concern. It could be a technical issue from the portal’s side also, so I have alerted state government to this,” said the Ghaziabad CMO.

“I am completely foxed with the data. Prima facie, the reason behind the difference appears to be an error by hospitals in uploading the details. I am going to verify the daily records and their entries at all the sites in the district. If some sort of discrepancy is found at any site, we’ll cancel the vaccination there as the district magistrate has already permitted for that,” said Dr Ohri.

How data is entered

According to officials, hospitals are required to update details of beneficiaries on the day of the vaccination. Only after this is the provisional vaccination certificate (after the first dose) and complete vaccination certificate (after second dose) are generated.

The hospitals and other vaccination centres are provided with a login ID and password to update records.

According to officials, the provisional certificates is sometimes given in handwritten notes to people that will include the next vaccination dates. In this course, the hospital delays entering it to accommodate more beneficiaries and eventually forgets about it, said an official.

“To sort out the issues, we have asked our officers to check session details of all the hospitals about number of entries done online and the pending entries. If we find any private hospitals whose details are pending, we will be forced to hold back vaccine supply till they update details,” said Dr Vishram Singh, district immunisation officer.

Dr Ashish Agarwal, president of Indian Medical Association – Ghaziabad, said that the issue was serious.

“Action should be initiated if any hospital is found not following procedure. The rate of vaccination is already low in the district. It would be worthwhile if the state government allows vaccination at clinics. We already take up vaccination of Influenza at clinics and the Covid vaccination should also be allowed. If this happens, the coverage will increase considerably,” he added.

As per the UP government, Ghaziabad has about 373,920 beneficiaries under phase-3.

In order to enhance the vaccination coverage, the Uttar Pradesh health department officials during a video conferencing with district health department officials directed them to create session slots for the entire month of March.