There have been some media reports in international media alleging a “vaccination fraud” and further claiming that people are being fraudulently registered as double vaccinated without receiving both doses.  These reports have also alleged that the vaccination “figures were being manipulated”.

It is clarified that such media reports are not only misleading but are completely ill-informed, and without any basis.

The headline of the said news report itself is misleading. The authors perhaps are not aware that it is the health workers themselves that enter vaccination event data in Co-WIN system. The claim of the authors that the very health workers who enter the data have alleged irregularities, indicates that the authors do not have any understanding of the processes of vaccination event recording on Co-WIN.

India’s nation-wide COVID vaccination drive is the largest such drive globally. It is supported with a strong technology backup provided by Co-WIN digital platform that has performed exceptionally in the last more than one year of the COVID vaccination drive. All the COVID vaccinations are recorded in this digital platform. 

Co-WIN system is an inclusive platform / system and has been designed keeping the limitations and challenges of mobile and internet availability across the country. Necessary features and flexibility, to ensure that every eligible individual has the access to vaccination, regardless of any of physical, digital or socioeconomic barriers to access, have been incorporated in Co-WIN.

At the same time, SOPs and features have been incorporated to prevent fraudulent and/or wrong data entry at time of vaccination as follows :

1. Every vaccination team has a verifier whose sole purpose is to establish the identity of the beneficiaries coming for vaccination.
2. The vaccination process has the following steps before a beneficiary is recorded as vaccinated in CoWIN
   1. Schedule – This can be online or onsite
   2. Verify – Only the scheduled beneficiaries (online or onsite) go to the next step of verification where in the verifier establishes the identity of the beneficiary as per the details entered in CoWIN
   3. Vaccinate – The beneficiary is marked as vaccinated only if a successful verification is done by the verifier/vaccinator.
3. For onsite registration and first dose vaccination
   1. The verifier/vaccinator at time of verification of any beneficiary who comes for 1^st dose or onsite registration needs to enter the OTP sent on the mobile number which is provided by the beneficiary.
   2. There is an option to do a Adhaar based authentication if Adhaar is provided.
   3. In case the other photo ids are provided the verifier/vaccinator has the option to capture the picture of the photo id proof.
4. For onsite 2^nd dose –
   1. The verifier/vaccinator can search the beneficiary from CoWIN database using name, beneficiary id (generated from CoWIN only), registered mobile number as per the details provided by the beneficiary. 
   2. Post successful verification, the beneficiary needs to provide her/his year of birth and secret code which is available only on the beneficiary dashboard and the SMS sent to the beneficiary.
5. SMS notifications are sent to beneficiary at every stage:
   1. At time of online/onsite registration,
   2. Intimation of due date of 2^nd dose/precaution dose vaccination
   3. Confirmation of vaccination
   4. Rejection for vaccination with reason

These features empower the verifier/vaccinators to establish the identity of the beneficiary at time of verification before marking the beneficiary as vaccinated. Despite the above enablers, there might be cases where vaccination team may overlook the SOPs leading to error in data entry and recording leading to cases where a beneficiary is marked vaccinated without being administered the vaccine. Due to the system of SMS communication with beneficiaries through CoWIN, such cases are immediately reported through the grievance addressal mechanism. On receiving such complaints, the details of the vaccination team and CVC where such cases are reported are sent to the concerned state officials for taking necessary corrective action.

Furthermore, the beneficiaries have been empowered to make necessary corrections in their records on CoWIN. The “Raise an issue” module in beneficiary dashboard allows the beneficiaries to make following corrections apart from changes in basic demographic details like name, age, gender and photo ID:

1. Merge two Dose #1 certificates
2. Report unknown member registered in “my CoWIN account”
3. Revoke vaccination – From fully to partially vaccinated, and from partially to not vaccinated.

It is important to note that the said media report has also carried an abridged statement of Government of India, as follows:

“In a statement, the government denied any vaccine fraud was taking place, stating that every vaccine team had a “verifier” whose sole job it was to confirm the identities of those being vaccinated. [The] CoWIN system is an inclusive platform and has been designed keeping the limitations and challenges of mobile and internet availability across the country,” the government said. “Necessary features and flexibility, to ensure that every eligible individual has the access to vaccination, regardless of any of physical, digital or socioeconomic barriers to access, have been incorporated in CoWIN. At the same time, SOPs [standard operating procedures] and features have been incorporated to prevent fraudulent and/or wrong data entry at time of vaccination.”

It needs to be appreciated that even with its very large population, India has successfully implemented its nationwide COVID vaccination program and administered more than 167 cr doses as on date, covering more than 76% of the eligible population above 18 years with both the doses.  

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MV

HFW/MythsVsFacts-CoWIN/3^rd Feb/2022/5