From January 16 the country will remain engrossed in COVID inoculation drive, the largest ever in its mass immunization history. Even if for the common people it will be a waiting till July as the priority groups comprising 3 crore healthcare and frontline workers and 27 crore above-50 and those under-50 with co-morbidities will be vaccinated first, the massiveness of the exercise is apparent from the fact that as many as 20 ministries and over two dozen state-level departments are being involved, not to mention the participation of more than 61,000 programme managers, two lakh vaccinators and 3.7 lakh other vaccination team members. From all these, two very important factors have emerged- one is the overarching importance of CoWIN, the online platform devised exclusively for monitoring real-time information of vaccine stocks, their storage temperature and individualised tracking of beneficiaries and the other of uninterrupted power supply at vaccine storage and session points. Both the above are crucial components for meeting the COVID vaccination challenge and for Arunachal they will require an additional emphasis as it’s an undeniable fact that both in terms of net connectivity and power supply there are always question marks.

 

While the country came to know about the date of commencement of the vaccination exercise on Saturday, on Sunday from a crucial meeting of the Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management to combat COVID-19 which was attended by the State Chief Secretaries, NHM Mission Directors, State Immunisation officers and other stakeholders, it emerged that the CoWIN online platform/app is going to form the bedrock of the entire Covid-19 vaccination drive, whether it be for the priority groups or for common citizens. The outcome of the meeting further suggests that Aadhaar platform is going to be used extensively and as such the states have been advised to urge the beneficiaries to seed their current mobile number with Aadhaar for vaccination registration and for follow-up communication through SMS so that the digital records of recipients are authentic and up to date. In this respect it’s relevant to note that as of now, the CoWIN app or website haven’t been operationalized and Union Health Ministry has already cautioned people against fake apps. While three options will be available for registration i.e. self-registration, individual registration and bulk upload, for Arunachal, the state government should think of organising mass camps, especially in far-flung districts which are practically out of the Digital India map. Uninterrupted power supply will mean a lot as without it, there is no way to keep the vaccines fit for use both at vaccine storage points and session sites.

 

The state must make sure that power and internet connectivity do not disrupt its COVID vaccination challenge.  

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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