L earning lessons from the Co-WIN portal launched for Covid-19 vaccine management system during the pandemic, the Union Health Ministry will soon roll out ‘U-WIN’ portal, for maintaining an electronic registry of routine immunisations.
The U-WIN programme has been designed to digitise the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) and it is presently being run in a pilot mode in two districts of each state and Union Territory.
The platform will be used to register and vaccinate every pregnant woman, record her delivery outcome, register every newborn delivery, administer birth doses and all vaccination events thereafter, official sources told.
U-WIN, which will replicate Co-WIN, was launched on January 11 in 65 districts across the country. Vaccination records under UIP are being maintained manually as of now. So this will do away with the hassle of keeping a physical record. It will enable the digitisation of session planning, and updating vaccination status on a real-time basis, an official said. Enlisting various issues in the present system, he said that for instance, multiple vaccines and doses lead to difficulty in monitoring and individual tracking.
“There is also lack of awareness among beneficiaries about sessions, location and date, especially in urban areas and iniquity in immunisation coverage in states/UTs.”
Besides, another major issue is that immunisation at private health facilities is not recorded, the official explained.
In contrast, the U-WIN is going to be the single source of information for immunisation services which will record pregnancy details and outcome, newborn registration and immunisation at birth.
There will also be live updating of vaccination status, delivery outcome, and planning of RI (routine immunisation) sessions. “There will be digital registrations of all pregnant women and newborns for individualised tracking for vaccination, reminders for upcoming doses and follow-up of dropouts.