Talking to the administrators from states and UTs on the Co-WIN software which forms the backbone of the last mile vaccine administration, Ram Sewak Sharma, Chairman of Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management to combat COVID-19 and member, National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration of COVID-19 focused on the critical importance of capturing the vaccination data in real time, stating that this was non-negotiable. 

He also critically highlighted the caution one needs to exercise to ensure that there are ‘no proxies’ at all and the beneficiaries need to be uniquely and undeniably identified, said Sharma.  

Speaking on the use of Aadhar platform, he advised the states to urge the beneficiaries to seed their current mobile number with Aadhar for registration and consequent communication through SMS; there cannot be any proxies for Aadhar authentication. 

He pointed out that it is extremely important to clearly identify the person who is getting vaccinated and keep a digital record on who gets vaccinated by whom, when and which vaccine. He also advised the states and UTs that the data collection should meet the purpose of facilitating work and that it needs to be validated at the field levels. 

There was a detailed and comprehensive discussion on the experience of the states/UTs. Their feedback and the consequent changes in software/protocols based on those inputs were deliberated upon. These included issues such as: Session allocation/planning/time slotting; workflow allocation; vaccinator’s allocation; sending SMS to vaccinators and beneficiaries; and connectivity issues. 

He reiterated that the inclusivity, speed and scalability have been kept in mind while designing the unique digital platform with all components being portable, synchronous without excessive and unnecessary dependencies. The meeting was attended by the State Principal Secretaries, NHM Mission Directors and State Immunisation officers and senior officers of the Health Ministry.