'Ineligible beneficiaries getting Covid shot as health, frontline workers': Centre

Union health secy has directed all states and Union territories to immediately stop new registrations in the two categories.

Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Saturday said that illegible beneficiaries are getting the Covid-19 vaccine under the category of healthcare and frontline workers. Bhushan directed all states and Union territories to immediately stop new registrations in the two categories on the CoWIN portal.

The Centre has asked states to stop registering health and frontline workers for Covid-19 vaccine. (Deepak Gupta/HT File Photo )

“Various inputs have been received from different sources that in some of the CVCs (Covid Vaccination Centres) some ineligible beneficiaries are being registered as healthcare workers and frontline workers and are getting vaccinated in complete violation of the prescribed guidelines,” the letter read.

As per Bhushan's letter to the states, there was a 24% increase in the database of the healthcare workers in the “past few days” on the portal.

The decision was taken after a meeting of the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 (NEGVAC) on Saturday.

The Covid-19 vaccination drive, which started on January 16, was to immunise 300 million healthcare workers, frontline workers, those over the age of 50 years with comorbidities in a phased manner. The first to receive the shots were 10 million healthcare workers. The drive opened up to 20 million frontline workers from February 1. People over the age of 60 years and those between the age group of 45 and 59 years with a combination of 20 specified comorbidities started receiving their shots from March 1. The drive was opened to all those over the age of 45 years from April 1.

The vaccination drive for all healthcare workers was to end on February 25 and for the frontline workers on March 6. The registrations were closed as the drive was coming to an end. It was later re-opened once the vaccination for the elderly and those with comorbidities began in March to vaccinate those healthcare and frontline workers who couldn't get vaccinated previously.

Although no new registrations for the two categories will happen on the government’s CoWIN portal, those who are already registered but haven’t taken the shot yet can still be immunised. “Universal vaccination of already registered healthcare workers and frontline workers should be ensured at the earliest,” Bhushan's letter read.

As the number of Covid-19 cases continues to rise in the country, experts call for the opening up of the vaccination drive to everyone over the age of 18 years.

“We should quickly vaccinate as many people over the age of 18 years. There is still a large proportion of the susceptible population that is leading to the second wave of the infection. So far, we have immunised around 7 crore people, which translates to about 5 to 6% of the population. With a 71% efficacy in preventing infections for the AstraZeneca vaccine, we have only about 4% of the population protected. And the majority is yet to receive the second dose of the vaccine,” said Dr GC Khilnani, former head of pulmonology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).