CO-WIN glitches continue to affect Mumbai inoculation drive

On the third day of COVID-19 inoculation drive in the city, the civic body managed to administer vaccines to just 52 per cent of the targeted 3,300 healthcare workers on Wednesday due to glitches in Co-WIN software application, officials said, adding that 'walk-in' vaccination is now allowed for registered workers.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials again blamed technical glitches in Co-WIN, the IT platform developed by the Union government to implement and manage the inoculation process, for low turnout of healthcare workers.

In view of the technical glitches, the BMC has decided to allow 'walk in' vaccination for the registered healthcare workers.

On Saturday, when the nationwide inoculation drive was launched, the civic body had suspended the process for two days due to the same reason related to Co-WIN.

On Wednesday, of the targeted 3,300 healthcare workers called for getting vaccinated at nine centres, only 1,728 workers or 52 per cent turned up, officials said.

On the second day of COVID-19 inoculation drive in Mumbai on Tuesday, the civic body managed to administer vaccines to only 50 per cent of the targeted number of healthcare workers.

According to data, the highest 362 healthcare workers were administered vaccines at KEM Hospital on Wednesday, followed by 306 at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Hospital, and 236 at Rajawadi Hospital, among other medical facilities.

All of them were administered Covishield vaccine, manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII), barring 15 healthcare workers who received doses of Covaxin at the state-run JJ Hospital.

On the third day in a row, the least number of vaccine doses were administrated at JJ Hospital.

Dr Mangala Gomare, executive health officer, BMC, told PTI that the Co-WIN application is still erratic, though some technical glitches are resolved.

The BMC has now decided to allow the registered healthcare workers to "walk in" and take vaccine doses, even though they are not listed for a particular day.

"Any registered healthcare worker, whose name is not in the list of vaccination on a given day, can now walk-in and take the vaccine jab," Dr Gomare said.

The civic body officials said that due to technical glitches, they were unable to get the details of the 4,000 registered health care workers, whom they want to schedule for the next day of vaccination, and unable to send them SMS through the system.

"Hence we have to call every individual healthcare worker through 'war rooms'' late in the night," they said.

On the first day of COVID-19 inoculation drive on Saturday, only 1,923 of the targeted 4,000 healthcare workers were administered vaccine shots.