States Get Second Dose Push As Centre Seeks Plans For Expediting Coverage Among Healthcare, Frontline Workers

The observation came as Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan chaired a high-level meeting with the states and Union Territories to review the progress of vaccination.

(File Photo/ AFP)

New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday asked the states to focus on second dose coverage among healthcare workers and frontline workers while terming it as a “cause of serious concern”.

The observation came as Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan chaired a high-level meeting with the states and Union Territories to review the progress of vaccination in view of the revised guidelines for implementation of the National Covid Vaccination Program.

The Health Secretary highlighted less than adequate private sector participation in the Covid-19 vaccination drive to the states or Union Territories.

“As per the revised guidelines, 25 percent of the vaccine stock can be procured by the private hospitals which can set up private CVCs for supplementing the government’s efforts in further universalisation of the vaccination drive. Limited presence of private hospitals and their unequal spread were highlighted for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, etc,” an official release said.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry also alerted the states to the new features in Co-WIN portal which were incorporated in light of the new vaccination guidelines.

The revised features allow rectifications in the personal information (Name, YOB, Gender and Photo ID number of the card used) by the people requesting changes only in any of the two fields out of the four mentioned.

These changes are, however, allowed only once. 

Besides, change in vaccine type, date of vaccination, vaccination events particular not recorded in Co-WIN can be made with the help of District Immunisation Officers (DIOs). These changes can’t be done by users themselves and they have to request the DIO for the same.

The states and UTs were also informed that the CoWIN platform was now available in 12 languages.