CoWin app set for revamp as pvt hospitals, states allowed to buy vaccines

According to government data, so far, 60,599 government vaccination sites and 6,549 private vaccination sites are integrated with the CoWIN app.

The CoWIN mobile application is set for a revamp as the government allows private hospitals and state governments to directly procure vaccines, and makes people above the age of 18 eligible for the jab, officials familiar with the matter said, asserting that certificates will continue to be issued by the central government to ensure that a database is maintained.

Once the integration is complete, prices of the vaccines, which can also be decided by the makers according to the new policy, will also be made available on the mobile application, along with the slots. (Manish Swarup / AP)

“A consolidated database of how many people have so far been vaccinated has to be maintained,” said an official familiar with the matter. “The central government will be the only authority issuing the vaccination certificates.”

According to government data, so far, 60,599 government vaccination sites and 6,549 private vaccination sites are integrated with the CoWIN app. Once the new system is rolled out, more hospitals will be integrated with the application system to provide citizens easy access to availability of vaccines. “The government is also trying to provide data with reference to availability of remdesivir and oxygen on the application. The number of vaccination sites is expected to rise with the change in policy.”

A second person said that switching the age of registration from 45 to 18 would be easy in a technical sense, but the more onerous task would be integrating the APIs (application programming interface) of CoWIN with the hospitals. “A hospital can choose whether to use the CoWIN app for registration or have a separate process, the idea is to ensure that a majority is onboarded to maintain a central database,” the second official said on condition of anonymity.

The official added that in case the hospital does not wish to integrate with the registration process, it will have to integrate APIs at the certificate level.

As far as registrations are concerned, the application can tackle the user load as it is scalable, the first official said. On Wednesday, 1,057,349 people registered for vaccination on the application. The app also provides the option of taking the second dose in a different state, city, in case a person is travelling.

Once the integration is complete, prices of the vaccines, which can also be decided by the makers according to the new policy, will also be made available on the mobile application, along with the slots.

Serum Institute of India on Wednesday fixed the price of Covishield vaccine at ₹400 for government hospitals and ₹600 for private hospitals. “The ultimate bottleneck will be availability of vaccines,” the second official said. “The makers are working to scale up availability, and there should be a clearer estimate available within the week.”