Digital Health Strategies Being Used For COVID -19 Vaccine Distribution In India

As the race for the COVID-19 vaccine is on the verge of completion, India’s next task is to make sure it is efficiently distributed to its 1.3 billion-strong population, which by no means is a simple task. The ‘Digital India’ initiative was launched to empower the nation in the field of digital technology and ensure the delivery of government services through electronic means and high-speed internet networks. The campaign has been extended to healthcare as well, and last year the Delhi Declaration for Digital Health was adopted by leaders from over 35 countries. But how is such a nation that clearly has the intention of becoming a global leader in Digital Health, using such a technology to deal with one of the biggest health crises in the world?

1. Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network for Monitoring the Vaccine Supply Chain

The Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network(eVIN) is an indigenously developed system introduced as part of the Universal Immunization Programme that uses a smartphone application to monitor vaccine stocks as well as their storage temperatures across all cold chain points in the country in real-time. The cold chain handlers update the eVIN application with the net utilization per immunization day, and this is uploaded to a cloud server that is available to program managers at the district, state, and national levels. The temperature is recorded using digital sensors in the refrigerator and cold-chain managers are alerted should the temperature vary. Currently, the program has been successfully rolled out in 12 states and resulted in savings of approximately 90 million doses of vaccines.

The Government plans to leverage this system for the pandemic by modifying it to include the Covid-19 vaccination beneficiary management system (CVBMS) to track all beneficiaries. They are also working on creating a database of all healthcare workers (HCW), and have requested states to gather this data and upload it to the CVBMS, as the healthcare workers would be the first to be vaccinated. The state of Odissa has already received 98% of the data for the database.

2. Unique Digital Health ID to Ensure Access to Vaccines

The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, recently announced that the unique Digital Health ID handed out to each citizen as part of the National Digital Health Mission(NDHM) will also be used to ensure immunization, although it won’t be mandatory. As per the NDHM, a Digital Health ID would contain all the health records of a person: all the ailments, tests, doctors visited, and medicines taken by an individual. It is seen as a pioneering step in ensuring universal healthcare and is predicted to strengthen the economy by improving the planning and optimization of health programs, as well as boost health research through data availability.

However, although the eVIN is a tried and tested strategy, the NDHM is still in an incipient stage and has only been launched in 6 union territories, that too on a pilot basis. The risks of technical and network problems cannot be overlooked.

Thus, the NDHM may bolster public health in the long term, but for now, the eVIN seems to be more promising. All in all, successfully implementing such a system would make India one step closer to realizing its one trillion USD digital potential.

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