Within 10 days from date of emergency use authorization, issued on January 3, the Health Ministry is prepared to roll out the vaccine for Covid-19 but noted that the final decision lies with the government.

 

Rajesh Bhushan, Union Health Secretary in a press briefing said healthcare workers and frontline workers need not register themselves as their database has been populated on to the Co-WIN vaccine delivery management system in a bulk manner but in case of the population priority group, the provision of registration and editing of data would come. Bhushan said Co-WIN system is made in India and for the world, the Indian government will actively help whichever country wants to use it.

"Based on the feedback of dry-run, the Health Ministry is ready to introduce Covid-19 vaccine within 10 days from date of emergency use authorisation," he added. However, while responding to a question on rollout, Bhushan said the final decision will be taken by the government.

On Sunday, the country's drugs regulator granted restricted emergency use approval to Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield and Covaxin of Bharat Biotech.

With a decline in the number of active cases and the number of deaths in India, an optimistic scenario is emerging with the pandemic said NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr V K Paul.

"Let's hope this trend will continue. In terms of the new UK mutant issue, this mutation has entered this country and 71 have been isolated which shows our capacity to mount that kind of a scientific investigation. But at the same time we have not seen the emergence of any untoward cluster in the country as of now which is reassuring so far," Paul said.

On the two vaccines that have been granted approval for restricted emergency use by the DCGI, Paul said that all scientific and statutory requirements have been met and regulatory norms followed in granting this permission and authorization.

Bhushan said Co-WIN will have a provision where an unique health ID can be created for a person and the acknowledgement can be kept in digi locker which is free or on the phone. "In case of an adverse event, to ensure its real time reporting there is a provision in Co-WIN vaccine delivery management system," he said.

Bhushan further added that Co-WIN has the facility of automated session allocation, Aadhaar authentication to prevent malpractice, creation of Unique Health ID for willing beneficiaries, reporting and tracking of adverse events following immunization, if any, SMSes in 12 languages to guide beneficiaries and vaccinators, QR code-based vaccination certificate issued after all doses, DigiLocker integrated for data retrieval and storing QR code-based certificate, 24x7 Helpline including IT professionals.