CoWIN-like platform to be launched to monitor children's COVID vaccination: Dr RS Sharma

Dr RS Sharma, CEO of the National Health Authority (NHA) informed that after the success of CoWIN, the Indian government's web portal for COVID-19 vaccinations, a new programme is being developed that would be able to keep track of every child's immunisation against coronavirus in the country.    

In June, Dr RS Sharma had said that in about five months, CoWIN has grown to over 300 million registrations and vaccinations. He had said, "CoWIN keeps an account of each individual. We've learned to create these kinds of platforms from our experience of Aadhaar and UPI".

Developed by India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, CoWIN has been instrumental in the country's COVID-19 vaccination drive, one of the largest in the world. The web portal caters to a range of services that include information on the availability of vaccination slots in nearby centres, the booking of slots, and the issuance of COVID-19 vaccination certificates.    

RS Sharma on quality hospitals 

Speaking on the right to quality treatment in hospitals, Sharma said, "We should get all quality hospitals connected with Ayushman Bharat. We're incentivising hospitals delivering quality healthcare and associating everybody having big and small hospital chains. We're ensuring that rates of care are realistic." 

Referring to the completion of 2 crore admissions under the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) scheme, he added, "The next target is to ensure that all eligible beneficiaries are covered. They get Ayushman cards and their cashless treatment takes place as per guidelines of PMJAY". The Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) scheme has catered to nearly two crore hospital admissions to date since its launch in 2018. 

CoWIN- a successful vaccination portal

On 26 June, the Central government allowed users to link their COVID-19 vaccination certificate to passports through the Co-WIN portal. This decision came as a big relief to all those who were planning to travel abroad. The official handle Aarogya Setu App had tweeted, giving all the details on how to link the passport to the vaccine certificate.

On 22 June, BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya claimed that India's COVID-19 vaccination portal CoWIN had received interest from 20 nations wanting to adopt it.

COVID situation in India

To date, India has reported a total of 3.25 crore COVID cases with 4.35 lakh deaths. The country has administered a total of 594,607,264 COVID vaccine doses across 39,524 vaccination sites.