Bhubaneswar: Following the concerns of Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Odisha government on Monday decided to prioritise vaccination of online appointees who have booked their slots through CoWIN platform over offline appointments or on-site registrations.
In a letter addressed to all the district Collectors and Municipal Commissioners, the State Health and Family Welfare Department said, “The MoHFW has advised that self-registration & on-line appointments should be the preferred mode for accessing vaccination and the features for on-site registration should only be used for the purposes of enabling access for facilitated cohorts and for minimizing vaccine wastage.”
“The MoHFW has noticed that at some Covid Vaccination Centres (CVCs), both on-line and on-site slots are kept and in such places, it has been observed that the beneficiaries who have booked an on-line appointment have to wait for longer period of time for availing vaccination against on-site slots,” the letter read.
In this context, the department has requested the Collectors and Municipal Commissioners to instruct the Programme Officers / Manager, Vaccinators and Verifiers in the districts and Municipal Corporations to ensure that the beneficiaries who have taken an online appointment through CoWIN shall be given preference for availing vaccination over the ones availing vaccination through on-site registration and appointments.
“CoWIN, IT platform has been designed and developed for facilitation of COVID-19 vaccination programme across the State. CoWIN platform provides the option for online self-registration and appointments as well as on-site registration and appointments for facilitating cohorts,” the letter concluded.