E-Paper
No Covid vaccination sessions planned on Sunday or Monday, Maharashtra health department clarifies
Earlier on Saturday, public health minister Rajesh Tope was quoted as saying by news agency PTI that the vaccination drive has been suspended due to glitches in government's CoWIN software.
The Maharashtra health department late on Saturday, denied reports that it has cancelled the Covid-19 vaccination drive till Monday. The health authorities said no such drive was planned on Sunday or Monday.
"No Covid vaccination sessions were planned on Sunday 17th or Monday 18th January. So the question of cancellation does not arise," the Maharashtra health department said in a statement, according to news agency ANI.
"Covid vaccination sessions will be organised in the next week as per government of India guidelines," it further said.
Earlier on Saturday, public health minister Rajesh Tope was quoted as saying by news agency PTI that the vaccination drive has been suspended due to glitches in government's CoWIN software.
"Not just in Maharashtra, everywhere in the country this app created problems in the execution of vaccination drive. We have decided to suspend the vaccination for the next two days," Tope had said.
A senior health department official in Maharashtra had said that owing to problems in CoWIN, text messages were not sent to many persons who were supposed to get the vaccine shot on Saturday.
The state vaccinated 18,338 or 64.34% of the targeted health workers on Saturday.
Many districts faced technical glitches in the CoWIN app that resulted in communication lags. “The server went slow leading to difficulties in uploading the data at many centres. In Dhule district, all four centres faced the problem. We have now directed the vaccination teams to register the details offline and upload them subsequently. We had to use hard copies of data on beneficiaries,” said Dr PD Gandal, deputy director, health services, Nashik division.
Barring 10 cases of mild reaction in some districts, no major side effects or Adverse Effect Following Immunisation (AEFI) were reported in the state.
The state is holding four sessions a week and is expected to complete about 4.4 lakh health care workers in 15 sessions over 28 days. The stock of 963,000 vials could cover about 4.4 lakh health workers with two doses each.
The next session will be held on Tuesday, according to the press release issued by the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
