App glitches hinder drive in some states

NEW DELHI: Health care workers administering the Covid-19 vaccine in at least five states faced minor hurdles on the first day of India’s immunisation drive while Maharashtra suspended its campaign for two days due to technical glitches with the Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network (CO-WIN) app that forms the backbone of the country’s immunisation plan.

Due to difficulties in uploading data on the app, which has been developed by the central government to monitor and track the inoculation process, health care workers in some districts had to put up information about the vaccine recipients on the digital platform manually, according to people aware of the developments.

The world’s largest Covid-19 vaccination programme was launched on Saturday in India with the aim to cover 300,000 recipients. Of these, 191,181 recipients were administered the first shot of the two-dose vaccines.

The CO-WIN app is meant to facilitate real-time information of vaccine stocks, storage temperature and individualised tracking of beneficiaries, besides assisting programme managers across national, state, and district levels.

Maharashtra’s state health department announced on Saturday that the vaccination campaign in the state will be temporarily suspended till Monday due to issues with the COWIN app.

The next session will be held on Tuesday, said a statement by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, after officials reported a slowdown in app functioning.

In West Bengal, government officials said the app slowed down since Friday, and many health workers could not operate it or add information about vaccine recipients.

“There were some technical glitches and the app had slowed since Friday. Not all messages were going to health workers who were supposed to receive the vaccine on Saturday morning. The persons concerned were individually called up and informed over phone,” said a senior official of the state health department.

Issues were also reported in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. Uttarakhand’s nodal officer for Covid-19 vaccination Kuldeep Singh Martoliya said slowdown in the app was reported from multiple districts in the state. “Our technical team is looking into this,” he said.

Health department officials from Rajasthan said that the COWIN app was slow in some places in Jaipur, Jodhpur and Barmer districts, and a government official in Madhya Pradesh said glitches were reported from districts such as Morena, Indore and Seoni.

According to the Union health ministry, Saturday’s issues were resolved quickly. “Since this was the first day of the vaccination drive and it was our first realtime experience, there were observed some minor glitches that were resolved immediately,” said Manohar Agnani, additional secretary, health ministry, who is also the nodal officer at the ministry for vaccine delivery.

On Saturday, Odisha government officials said they will pause the vaccination drive for a day to observe beneficiaries who received the first dose.