After a lengthy wait with no prospective vaccine in sight against the COVID-19 Novel Corona Virus Pandemic, people are finally heaving a sigh of relief with a number of potent vaccines being registered by various companies! The vaccine candidates developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have shown very good results and the Pfizer vaccine candidate has already gotten Emergency Use Approval in Bahrain and the UK. The first round of public immunisation has already begun and the vaccine is being distributed for the public with the aged people & healthcare professionals getting first priority. 

It had been reported earlier that the Indian government had already gotten in place a delivery plan for distributing the COVID-19 vaccine, as and when they were ready for public use. Now, the Health Ministry has made a very important announcement in this regard. The Indian Health Ministry has announced the launch of a mobile application named Co-WIN for the real-time monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine distribution. This new app is similar to the Aarogya Setu app, which was earlier launched by the Indian government to help track the spread of the COVID infection and to bring it under control. Now, people can register on the Co-WIN app for being immunised with a COVID-19 vaccine shot.

The Co-WIN app is as yet not functional but the details of the app were shared to the media, by the Health Ministry. We also hear that this app will be sending the real-time data of the temperatures of the vaccine storage facilities to the main server. Co-WIN is said to be a complete expansion of the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) system, which was launched in September. Three vaccine makers - Pfizer, Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech have applied for emergency use approvals to the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) and are awaiting the results. If approved, the COVID vaccination drive in India will begin with the vaccine candidates of these three companies.