Centre committed to transparency in COVID vaccination programme, but directs states not to share eVIN data

The Health Ministry says the government is committed to transparency in COVID vaccination programme, and has come up with real-time IT-based tracking of vaccine logistics eVIN. But on the contrary, it has directed states and UTs not to share the data of the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) system on vaccine stocks and the temperature of vaccine storage at public forums without prior consent.

The ministry had earlier said the Centre, with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has rolled out the eVIN system under UIP, which is used to track the vaccine stock status, temperature at all levels of storage, that is, from national to the sub-district level. All the states are using this system to update the stock and transactions of COVID vaccines on a daily basis.

As such, the ministry pointed out that the data and analytics generated by the platform for inventory and temperature is owned by the Ministry of Health and not to be shared with any other organization, partner agency, media agency, online and offline public forums without the consent of the ministry.

“The government’s advice to state and UTs to obtain permission of Union Health Ministry before sharing eVIN data and analytics related to vaccines stocks and temperature at which they are stored is soley to prevent any misuse of this data by agencies for commercial purpose,” the ministry said. “Important to note that Union Health Ministry is using eVIN electronic platform for all vaccines used under UIP for more than six years now. Sharing of sensitive eVIN data on stocks and storage, temperature requires the Health Ministry’s prior consent.”

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It said the order in focus was intended to prevent use of such sensitive data for unauthorized commercial purposes. Moreover, the data on COVID-19 vaccine stocks, their consumption and balance is reflected on the CoWIN platform. It is regularly shared by the Union Ministry through weekly press conferences and daily press releases.

The statement highlighted that several measures are being taken for timely availability of COVID-19 vaccines across the country – streamlining its supply chain, including storage is given priority.