PUNE: Glitches in the CoWIN portal on Wednesday impacted Corbevax drives across the state for children in the 12-14 age group.
In Pune district, a total of 963 children were given the shot; vaccinators had to record the jabs manually as CoWIN was offline. Mumbai had recorded only 142 vaccinations till evening.
Officials in Pune told TOI on Wednesday that the manually recorded data will be uploaded on CoWIN once its glitches are resolved.
“The vaccination slots remained unavailable at many designated centres, mainly between 9am and 2pm on Wednesday,” said Dr Sanjay Deshmukh, assistant director, health services, Pune.
He added, “Vaccinators struggled to create sessions due to the glitches. Creating sessions is a mandatory first step before starting the drive. Personal details of those who got the shot after 2pm were registered manually.”
Some eligible children, who had turned up early on Wednesday for on-spot registration, were asked to come after 2pm, or on Thursday.
“We waited for some time but hospital staffers later told us to come after 2pm as CoWIN was down. But we'll visit on Thursday,” said a young beneficiary who had turned up at the PMC-run Sutar Hospital around 9.30am.
The PMC’s chief immununisation officer Dr Suryakant Devkar said, “The CoWIN portal is being updated to include the newly announced 12–14 age group under the Covid vaccination programme. Glitches are being resolved; children will not have any problems getting the shot on Thursday.”
The civic body had designated 29 civic hospitals as Corbevax sites.
“Some of these centres allowed offline shots for a total of 60 children later in the day after 2pm,” Dr Devkar added.
In rural Pune, about 843 children got their first Corbevax shot on Wednesday.
“Our vaccinators verified dates of birth and gave the shots. We will upload their data on the CoWIN portal later,” said Dr Abhay Tidke, additional district health officer. In Pimpri Chinchwad, 60 children were given the jab.
