Assam: No vaccination in many districts due to confusion, CoWIN glitches

Teething trouble with the CoWIN application and confusion slowed down the Covid-19 vaccination in Assam on day two, officials said. The vaccination programme had to be postponed in 12 districts of the state.

“It’s not a problem from our end. CoWIN Server is very slow, we could not create session sites in many districts today. We tried till morning,” said Munindra Nath Ngatey, Director of Health Services (Family Welfare), Assam. “It is a new model. It is not running smoothly at the moment,” he added.

There was no vaccination in twelve districts including Baksa, Biswanath, Cachar, Charaideo, Chirang, Dhemaji, Goalpara, Karimganj, Sonitpur, South Salmara, Tinsukia and Udalguri. Ngatey said on Monday, vaccination could only take place at 40 sites with 2014 health workers out of 4,074 who had enrolled for vaccination turning up. On Saturday, vaccination kicked off at 65 sites across the state.

In Barpeta for example, only two of the three vaccination sites functioned on Monday. “The one in Kalgachia could not function because of CoWin issues. In the other two sites, we recorded a 47% turnout,” a district health official said. Barpeta is one of the two districts in the state where Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin is being administered.

An official in Udalguri said the vaccination had to be suspended because of confusion and lack of clarity from Guwahati. “After the video conference on Sunday, there was confusion whether we have to first vaccinate those who did not turn up on Saturday. There was no clarity on it from Guwahati,” said Tayabur Rehman, Joint Director, Udalguri. He added that vaccination will resume on Tuesday.

“There are new guidelines for vaccination. We are preparing and will resume on Tuesday,” said a health department official in Sonitpur.