COVID-19 Vaccination: More than 1 million users registered on Co-WIN portal

Co-WIN is the digital platform created by the government for real-time monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine delivery. The new version of the Co-WIN platform is GPS-enabled and allows beneficiaries to choose the inoculation session site both at the government and private facilities.

Moneycontrol News

March 01, 2021 / 05:27 PM IST

Vaccination drive is underway in India since January 16 (Image: Reuters)

As phase two of India's vaccination drive kicked off, the official Twitter account of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare announced that more than one lakh users have registered on the Co-WIN portal as of 1 pm March 1.

#LargestVaccineDrive pic.twitter.com/JFasN3VKzO

— Ministry of Health (@MoHFW_INDIA) March 1, 2021

Right as the vaccination drive started at 9 am, it was seen that the Co-WIN portal – www.cowin.gov.in, faced minor glitches. However, this majorly affected many vaccination centres throughout the country, where some had to even completely stop vaccination for the day, reported CNBC. For instance, Copper Hospital in Mumbai stopped vaccination completely. In Chennai, Apollo Hospitals said it's working things out manually and coordinating with the government. Similarly, in Bengaluru and Delhi, COVID Vaccination Centres faced issues related to the app, according to CNBC.

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Users who were trying to register themselves said they were facing issues with the OTP that they never received or received late.

The Union Health Ministry also clarified that registration and booking of appointments will be done only through the Co-WIN portal and that there is no app for beneficiaries. The app on the Play Store is only for administrators, the ministry said.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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