Health workers on the frontline of India’s Covid vaccination programme say people are being officially registered as double vaccinated without receiving both doses because of pressure to meet government targets.
Workers described how easy it was to falsely register second vaccine doses for people who did not attend appointments, by using personal records from their first dose and opting to bypass a code sent to their mobile phone.
“There is no technical glitch,” said Aditya, a health worker from Uttar Pradesh who requested that only his first name was used owing to fear of reprisal. “The issue is the unprecedented pressure on us to increase the number of vaccinated people.”
The vaccine status of all citizens is recorded on a government-built platform called CoWIN. CoWIN vaccination certificates are globally recognised and make people eligible for inter-state and international travel, including to countries that are accepting only fully vaccinated passengers.
The government had set a deadline of the end of 2021 to get everyone in India vaccinated, which was missed. According to official statistics, 75% of the adult population have now had two doses. Last week, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, tweeted that he was “proud of all those who are making our vaccination drive a success”.
However, health workers who spoke to the Guardian alleged the figures were being manipulated, and estimated that in urban areas 20% to 35% of people had been fraudulently registered as double vaccinated. In rural areas they estimated that the figure could be as high as 40% to 60%.
‘Shocking’
Manish Kumar, a 21-year-old student from Patna, Bihar, described how he had been on the way to a vaccination centre in June last year when his sister, Puja Kumari, 28, received a text message on her phone saying she had successfully received her first vaccine.
When the siblings reached the centre about an hour later they raised the problem with officials and threatened legal action. “After that, they vaccinated all of us, including my sister, saying there was a technical glitch and apologised,” said Kumar.
But the same then happened to Kumar’s father, Mukesh Prasad, a farmer, who was en route to the vaccination centre when he got a text saying his second vaccine had been administered.
Another problem emerged when it came to Kumar’s second dose. In October, after he had moved 170 miles away to attend Banaras Hindu University in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh, he received a message saying he had just received his second dose at a health facility in Patna. “I want some sort of protection from Covid-19, but how will my father and I get the second vaccine done?” asked Kumar.
Kaprela Hari, a 32-year-old IT professional from Rajampet in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, faced a similar problem for his father, a farmer, who had been too busy in the fields to make time for his second appointment. Out of the blue, he received a text message confirming his father’s receipt of a second vaccine dose and a link to the CoWIN certificate of double vaccination status.
“The nearby facility for vaccination would open at 11am and close at 1pm, and it had not been possible for me to get my father vaccinated in this two-hour gap,” said Hari. “So I was surprised when I got the vaccination message.”
After taking up the issue with a health worker posted in his locality, Hari said he was told that the local facility was not responsible and that his father “should have turned up for vaccination on time”.
Hari concluded that data was being “manipulated”.
Deceased people also appear to be receiving vaccine certificates in an apparent attempt to boost numbers. In January, Uday Bir Singh was having lunch with relatives in a restaurant when he received a text: “Dear Manju Rani, you have successfully been vaccinated with your second dose.” A click on the link attached to the message revealed the vaccine certificate of his wife, Rani, who had died of Covid eight months earlier.
“It felt like a cruel joke,” said Akanksha, Singh’s daughter. “How can my mother be vaccinated in January 2022 when she died in May 2021? We felt devastated and didn’t understand how it happened.”
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.”
India’s healthcare system is woefully underfunded and underresourced, and the vaccination programme has put more pressure on frontline healthcare workers, who work long hours on little pay. Several workers said the practice of falsely registering people as fully vaccinated was a result of threats from senior officials to suspend workers or withhold salaries if vaccination targets were not met.
“I was slapped in a meeting by a district level official who was not happy with the number of vaccinations we have been doing,” said a 45-year-old health worker in Bihar. “Later, the official called me and apologised, saying that there is tremendous pressure from the minister of the state.”
Wahida, a healthcare worker from Jammu and Kashmir, said: “The easy way to get away with the situation is to register people, no matter what. It is less hectic and officials are also happy.”
