Glitches in Co-WIN portal leads to drop in Covid vaccination percentage in Bihar

Bihar witnessed a drop of more than 10% in the turnout of the targeted group when 14,745 health care workers shoup for vaccination against coronavirus disease (Covid-19) against a target of 28,791 amid technical glitches on the Covid-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) portal on day two of the vaccination campaign on Monday.

Bihar had witnessed 62% vaccination turnout on the inaugural day of the campaign on January 16.

A doctor at the Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH) reportedly created a ruckus at the vaccination centre when she found that her name was missing from the list despite having received an SMS notification about her vaccination scheduled for Monday.

Vaccination officers complained that the Co-WIN portal was slow in responding. As a result, uploading information on it was time consuming and tedious.

“The portal is crashing intermittently, leading to delay in vaccination of our health workers. It happened on the inaugural day of vaccination last Saturday and today as well,” said Dr Vidyapati Chaudhary, principal of the Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH).

“We are not getting the names of beneficiaries on time. As a result, we are unable to contact them telephonically. Some beneficiaries have complained that they did not receive any intimation about their vaccination. Sometimes, mid-way through the exercise, names of beneficiaries also disappear from the portal,” added Dr Chaudhary.

Officials said they had flagged the Co-WIN portal issue with the central government which was handling it.

Given the technical glitches in the portal, many hospital administrators suggested to the state health department on Monday to allow them to prepare the beneficiary list manually from the names of health care workers already enrolled for vaccination on the portal. The state said it would seek a formal nod from the Centre before giving a go-ahead.

At present, vaccination officers have to adhere to the list of beneficiaries generated by the government through the Co-WIN portal, a day prior to their vaccination. However, this list was being generated late and with difficulty, officials said.

Meanwhile, the AIIMS-Patna prepared a manual list of beneficiaries, as per availability of health care workers, and achieved 100% target for the second day on Monday as well.

“We have taken a clearance from the state authorities to prepare a manual list of beneficiaries from among our health care workers who had enrolled for vaccination on the portal,” said Dr CM Singh, superintendent, AIIMS-Patna.

“The idea is to vaccinate maximum people in the shortest possible time. Preparing a manual list, depending on availability of health care workers, helps save time and resources,” said Dr Snajeev Kumar, nodal officer for Covid-19 at AIIMS-Patna.

Patna, which has 16 session centres or vaccination centres , also witnessed a 6.5% drop in vaccination on Monday as compared to Saturday when 775 out of 1,422 (54.5%) personnel listed on Monday turned up for inoculation.

Against 100 beneficiaries listed at each vaccination centre, only 78 turned up at PMCH, 28 at Nalanda Medical College Hospital (NMCH), 76 at Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS), 40 at Guru Gobind Singh Hospital, 24 at Barh sub-divisional hospital (SDH), 39 at Danapur SDH, 10 at Masaurhi SDH, 39 at Bakhtiyarpur primary health centre (PHC), 15 at Bihta PHC, 26 at Dhanarua PHC, 30 at Fatuha community health centre, 30 at Maner PHC, 30 at Phulwarishari PHC, 38 at Paras Hospital, 62 at Ruben Hospital and 87 at BIG Hospital.

Patna district magistrate Chandrashekhar Singh had asked Patna civil surgeon Dr Vibha Kumari Singh to sensitise health care workers where vaccination percentage was poor.

Efforts to reach executive director of the State Health Society, Bihar, Manoj Kumar, also the state nodal officer for vaccination, proved futile.