New Delhi, May 24 (IANS): The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Monday initiated on-site Registration in addition to online appointment for 18-44 years age group now on CoWIN, the service is only enabled only for Government Covid Vaccination Centres (CVCs) to minimise vaccine wastage and to facilitate those without internet reach.
The ministry said the reason behind it to provide maximum vaccination as in case of sessions exclusively organised with online slots, towards the end of the day, some doses may still be left unutilised in case the online appointee beneficiaries do not turn up on day of vaccination due to any reason. In such cases, on-site registration of a few beneficiaries may be necessary to minimise the vaccine wastage.
Although CoWIN provides for features such as registration of up to 4 beneficiaries with a mobile number, facilitates registration and appointments through applications, such as ArogyaSetu and Umang and through the Common Service Centres, people requiring facilitated cohort's facility and those without access to internet or smart phones or mobile phones may still have limited access for vaccination.
Therefore, the feature for on-site registration and appointment is now being enabled for 18-44 years age group on CoWIN.
This feature will not be available for Private CVCs, presently and the Private CVCs will have to publish their vaccination schedules exclusively with slots for online appointments.
This feature will be used only upon decision of the respective State/UT Government to do so. State/UT must decide on opening of on-site registrations/facilitated cohorts' registration and appointments for 18-44 years age group based on the local context just as an additional measure to minimise vaccine wastage and for facilitating vaccination of eligible beneficiaries in the age group 18-44 years.
The Union Health Ministry has advised the states and UTs to issue clear instructionsto all District Immunisation Officers to strictly adhere to decision of respective State/UT Government regarding the extent and manner of using the on-site registration and appointment feature for 18 to 44 years age group.
Fully reserved sessions can also be organised for providing vaccination services to the beneficiaries belonging to facilitated cohorts. Wherever such fully reserved sessions are organized, all efforts must also be made to mobilise such beneficiaries in sufficient numbers.
The Union Health Ministry has further advised States/UTs that abundant caution should be exercised and extreme due care should be taken while opening up of on-site registration and appointment for 18-44 years age group, in order to avoid overcrowding at vaccination centres.