Revoke vaccination feature added to CoWIN to address incorrect data entry

A new feature on the CoWIN website would now allow beneficiaries to revoke vaccination status to partially vaccinated or unvaccinated, in cases where a wrong data entry has been made on the platform and the vaccination certificates have been generated due to such data entry errors, the health ministry said on Friday.

The existing limit of registering four members on one mobile number has also been increased to six members now.

India added nearly 350,000 new Covid cases during the past 24 hours, as on Friday morning, the highest in eight months. The daily positivity rate has also crossed 17 per cent. Total Covid deaths recorded in a day rose to 703. Of these, the death data from Kerala was reconciled to add 309 fatalities as on Friday morning.

Amid rising cases, vaccination according to government data is one of the factors that has kept hospitalisation at low levels. The new updates in the self-registration portal of CoWIN are meant to enable full vaccination of the larger population.

The health ministry said in a statement, “The vaccination status can be corrected by the beneficiaries, where in occasional isolated cases, the vaccination Certificates are generated due to inadvertent data entry errors by the vaccinator in update of vaccination data of beneficiaries.”

The new utility feature has been introduced under “raise an issue” in the CoWIN account of the beneficiary. The changes could take from three to seven days to reflect from the time the online request is submitted.

“Such beneficiaries can get their due vaccine dose, may be at the nearest vaccination centre, as per the existent standard guidelines once new vaccination status is successfully updated in the system,” the health ministry said.

The vaccination drive has been expanded to those in the age group 15 to 17 along with precautionary doses for those above 60, health and frontline workers. Government is also considering starting the vaccination drive for younger kids in the 12-14 years age bracket.

So far India has vaccinated 94 per cent of its adult population with a single dose while another 72 per cent are fully vaccinated, in a drive that started over a year ago on January 16.