CO-WIN app: 7million front-line workers registered

The database is being upgraded on the Co-WIN app that is the backbone of Covid-19 vaccine delivery management system.

Close to seven million front-line workers,including armed forces and police personnel, municipal workers and disaster management volunteers, at the vanguard of the fight against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), have been registered to receive vaccine shots on a priority basis staring in the first week of February.

The states are in the process of identifying the remaining beneficiaries among front-line workers. (Reuters)

They are among an estimated 20 million people deemed to be at high risk of contracting the viral disease . In a directive to the states and Union territories on Friday, the Centre called for the start of the Covid-19 vaccination process on front-line workers simultaneously with health-care workers being administered the jabs across the country.

The states are in the process of identifying the remaining beneficiaries among front-line workers. The database is being upgraded on the Co-WIN app that is the backbone of Covid-19 vaccine delivery management system. Information on them is being gathered from their respective organisations and departments.

“After health care workers, the Co-WIN database is now also being populated with details of front-line workers. The process will be the same as it is currently being followed to register health-care workers for vaccination,” said a senior official from the ministry of health and family welfare who did not wish to be identified.

Front-line workers comprise personnel from state and Central police departments, armed forces, home guards, prison staff, disaster management volunteers, members of civil defence organisations, municipal workers and revenue officials engaged in Covid-19 containment, surveillance and associated activities.

“The eligible beneficiaries who are registered in the system will also get texts like health care workers or can be allowed walk-ins like it is done for the health care workers currently at {vaccination} session sites,” the official cited above added.

Doses of both the Covid-19 vaccines approved for use in India, Covishield and Covaxin, have been allocated to the states and UTs in line with their requirements.

According to the ministry of health, the vaccination drive will be augmented through subsequent releases of vaccine doses to states and UTs, if required.

“The states and UTs should ensure that the sessions must be created for both the type of vaccines in proportion to the release of vaccines to the states... direct the concerned officials to initiate requisite planning and review for initiating vaccination...,” the health ministry’s directive to states on Friday said.

India had vaccinated close to 3.7 million health care workers until Sunday morning, with the number of vaccinations per day even crossing 500,000.

The government now is confident of scaling it up further to add more population groups.

Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, in a review meeting on Saturday, said Covid-19 vaccines were available in sufficient quantity and technical glitches on the Co-WIN app had now been resolved.

States were advised to ensure that regular review meetings of the state, district and block-level task forces were held to assess the emerging challenges, understand the ground issues and promptly address them.

It was pointed that there was huge scope for improvement in the number of average vaccinations per session so the state health secretaries were asked to analyse the daily variations in the number of average vaccinations, and to take the necessary steps to increase them.

States were also asked to organize multiple simultaneous vaccination sessions per day in the health facility wherever possible to substantially boost the number of vaccinations per day.

“It is time to scale up,” said Bhushan.