New Delhi: India will launch its COVID-19 vaccination drive from January 16 in what Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called the world’s largest inoculation programme with priority to be given to nearly three crore healthcare and frontline workers.
As part of preparations for the nationwide rollout of COVID-19 vaccine, the Health Ministry on Sunday held a video conference with officials from states and Union Territories to discuss feedback on the Co-WIN software and its operational use gathered from the vaccination dry runs.
The meeting was chaired by Ram Sewak Sharma, the chairman of Empowered Group on Technology and Data Management to combat COVID-19 and member of National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration of COVID-19.
Giving an overall view of the CoWIN software and the principles that shall underpin the technology backup for the vaccination exercise, he said robust, dependable and agile technology shall form both the foundation and the back-up for the country’s COVID-19 vaccination drive.
“The process should be citizen-centric and built on an approach that the vaccine shall be available anytime and anywhere,” Sharma was quoted as saying in a statement.
He stressed on the need for flexibility without compromising on quality and reiterated that inclusivity, speed and scalability have been kept in mind while designing the digital platform with all its components being portable, synchronous without excessive and unnecessary dependencies.
