COVID-19 Vaccination ALERT! Check out THIS FEATURE enabled on CoWIN portal at government vaccination centers for 18-44 years old

COVID-19 Vaccination Latest News: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Monday that India has crossed a significant landmark in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The cumulative vaccine doses for the age group 18 to 44 years administered in the country crosses one crore landmark. Also, a new feature has been enabled by the CoWIN portal for the government COVID Vaccination Centers (CVCs) for the adults in the age group 18 to 44 years. 

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According to a press release from MoHFW, based on the various representations given by the states and inputs received by the Union Health Ministry for the vaccination of 18-44 years age group, the government has now decided to provide facility of on-site registration/facilitated cohort registration on CoWIN digital platform for 18-44 years age group. It must also be noted that this feature will not be available for the private CVCs, presently and the private CVCs will have to publish their vaccination schedules exclusively with slots for online appointments.

There are two main reasons that have led to the feature for on-site registration and appointment for 18-44 years age group on CoWIN. They are as follows: 

1) In case of sessions exclusively organized with online slots, towards the end of the day, some doses may still be left unutilized in case the online appointee beneficiaries do not turn up on day of vaccination due to any reason. For such instances, the on-site registration of a few beneficiaries may be necessary to minimize the vaccine wastage.

2) Even though CoWIN provides for features such as registration of up to 4 beneficiaries with a mobile number, facilitated registration and appointments through applications, such as Arogya Setu and Umang and through the Common Service Centres etc., 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.

Notably, this feature will be used only upon decision of the respective states and the union territories. The states and the union territories 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 minimize vaccine wastage and for facilitating vaccination of eligible beneficiaries in the age group 18-44 years.