Glitches hit CoWin portal, vaccine drive goes haywire

Bengaluru: Technical glitches in the CoWin portal continued to impede the Covid-19 vaccination for a few hours in Bengaluru on Tuesday.

Manipal Hospitals encountered the issue, hampering the programme for some time. However, it was resolved soon.

A senior health official from the district hospital, Mysuru, said, "The vaccination process was smooth and we have not encountered any glitches." Dr Ramachandra, District Health Officer, Dakshin Kannada told The Hans India that not a single case of technical glitche was reported from any part of the state.

Allaying apprehensions, he stated that not a single case of any ill-effect of the vaccine was reported either.

Dr Aravinda GM, Consultant - Internal Medicine, Manipal Hospitals, Jayanagar, said that the vaccine is safe for senior citizens with comorbodities.

"It is very safe. Senior citizens are more prone to Covid infection and the mortality is high in this age group. In the past six months, highest mortality was of elderly people with comorbidities. Two doses of Covid vaccine has already been administered to health care professionals, no major adverse / untoward incidents have been reported."

Dr V. Ravi, former professor, Neurovirology at NIMHANS and nodal officer for genomic confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 Government of Karnataka, said, "The available data has shown there are not many severe instances, so senior citizens and people above 45 with or without co-morbidities must take the vaccination. Because with co-morbidities, senior citizens require it more than younger people in 30-35 years age group."

He further said, "Misinformation related vaccines has put frontline health workers on guard for no reason. The hesitancy is the combination of the factors. The first and foremost being the fact that we feel that we are over the hill, then why should we take the vaccine. There is this perception that these are fast tracked vaccines, so safety is an issue. People must remember that although these are fast-tracked vaccines but have undergone minimum three phases of trials before they have been rolled out for use. There has been pre-clinical phase where animals have been given the vaccine, they were challenged with live virus, and there was protection shown. These things are not communicated properly to people and so there is lot of misconception."

Dr Saranya Narayan, Chief Microbiologist, Neuberg Diagnostics, said, "Vaccination will help us in combating second wave. At our lab, the frontline workers were apprehensive. However, when we educated them about its safety, they did come forward for the jab. And we have seen zero side effects so far."