New Delhi: The Centre has asked state governments not to share the data on the vaccine stocks at public forums. This includes organisations, media, and partner agencies. The Health Ministry emphasised that the vaccination drive is a means to protect the most vulnerable people in the population.
The letter from the Union Health Ministry said that the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) system for Covid-19 vaccine stocks and the temperature of vaccine storage are sensitive information. It is to be used only for programme improvement.
eVIN is an indigenously developed technology to digitise vaccine stocks, streamline vaccine flow, and regularise the network.
The letter written by Pradeep Haldar, Advisor, Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) to all mission directors of the National Health Mission in all the states and Union territories clarified that the data and analytics generated are owned by the Ministry of Health.
The letter stated that the Centre rolled out the eVin system under UIP with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to track vaccine stock status and the temperature from the national to the sub-district level. The Health Ministry added that all the states are using the system to update the stock and transactions of Covid-19 vaccines every day. The letter added that the data is overwhelming.
The Union Government had recently announced that over 24 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered across the nation. 3.38 crore people in the 18-44 age group have received the first dose. 4.05 lakh people across the country have received the second dose.
10 lakh beneficiaries of the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine are in Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.