The Indian authorities may have given a go-ahead to two COVID-19 vaccines (Covishield by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and Covaxin by Bharat Biotech), the task of administering a two-dose vaccine to over 1.3 billion people will be nothing short of a logistical nightmare.
With the approval of the two vaccines, the government authorities have also re-launched the Co-WIN (COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network). The indigenously built platform, which will work as an intelligence ecosystem, is an updated version of eVIN (Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network), and has been developed in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
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eVIN & Co-WIN
The eVIN platform was rolled out in 2015 under India’s National Health Mission to vaccinate 27 million women and 29 million children annually. The platform digitized vaccine stocks and monitored the temperature of the cold chain through a smartphone application. Launched across 12 states of India, e-VIN supported the United Nation’s Universal Immunization Programme for vaccine logistics management.
Co-WIN, an extension of eVIN, is a Cloud-based solution for planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the COVID-19 vaccine in India. Experts opine that the upgraded platform needs to be scaled up to leverage the potential of emerging technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Internet of Things (IoT) to accomplish the mammoth task of effective vaccine administration. It is being argued that Co-WIN must have a system to track both vaccines and beneficiaries in real-time.
For now, the Co-WIN application is available only to government officials. The bulk registration process has already started, and in the next phase the beneficiaries will be sent SMS notifications about their vaccination center and date, once the inoculation process begins nationally. The Co-WIN application currently has five modules — administration, registration, vaccination, beneficiary acknowledgement and report.
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Technology as the game-changer
Health experts and stakeholders from the larger healthcare industry have highlighted the limitations in the current intelligence network. They have said that other than registration, Co-Win also needs to enable supply chain and inventory management, monitoring of vaccines during the transit, data storage and training of centre, state and district officials for a successful immunization program. The only way that is possible is through the use of technologies like AI and IoT.
Most of the COVID-19 vaccines require storage at specific temperatures. For instance, the Oxford vaccine distributed by the Serum Institute of India needs a storage temperature of 2-8 degrees Celsius. To ensure an efficient storage system, sensor-based IoT technology can come in handy, as it allows constant monitoring of data in real-time. The sensors can read temperature and send a system alert for the next shipment of vaccines, in case there is any change in temperature. Further, the entire process involves a humongous amount of data, which has to be managed and stored in a Cloud accessible to all stakeholders. In this context, platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud can be of assistance, considering the sensitivity of data collected.
The major issue is also of tracking the real-time information of vaccine supply chain in the hinterlands of India. The government can mitigate this issue through location-based analytics which can help in any kind of vaccine supply chain disruptions throughout. The technology provides day-to-day optimization with real-time estimated time of arrival (ETAs) which can help recognize over-reliance on distribution centres.
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Rebuilding technology
To address the issue of technology uptake, the Government of India has initiated a startup challenge to strengthen the intelligence platform through indigenous technology solutions. The focus areas of the challenge include technologies related to infrastructure, dynamic learning and information systems, monitoring and management, vaccine logistics management, tracking of enlisted beneficiaries and constraints associated with human resource with technical capabilities.
In a country as vast and diverse as India, an effective immunization program needs new-age technologies and efficient coordination between all stakeholders.
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