On-site registration and appointment have now been enabled for the 18-44 years age group on the CoWin platform for COVID-19 vaccination, the Union Health Ministry said on Monday.
However, this feature is being enabled only for government COVID Vaccination Centers (CVCs) at present, it said.
This feature will not be available for private CVCs and they will have to publish their vaccination schedules exclusively with slots for online appointments.
This feature will be used only upon the decision of respective states and UT governments.
States and UT must decide on the opening of on-site registrations/facilitated cohorts’ registration and appointments for 18-44 years age group based on the local context just as an additional measure to minimize vaccine wastage and for facilitating vaccination of eligible beneficiaries in the age group of 18-44 years, the ministry said in its statement.
The coverage of vaccination was expanded to people in the age group of 18 to 44 years on May 1 with the implementation of the Liberalised Pricing and Accelerated National COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy.
The facility of only online appointment mode initially to people in the age group of 18 to 44 years helped to avoid overcrowding at vaccination centres, the statement.
Based on various representations given by states and inputs received by the ministry for the vaccination of 18-44 years age group, the Union government has now decided to provide the facility of on-site registration/facilitated cohort registration on CoWIN digital platform for 18-44 years, age group, considering that in case of sessions exclusively organised with online slots, towards the end of the day, some doses may still be left unutilised in case the online appointee beneficiaries do not turn up on the day of vaccination.
In such cases, on-site registration of a few beneficiaries may be necessary to minimise the vaccine wastage, the statement said.