New Delhi, July 5
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday offered India’s Co-WIN platform to the world for adaptation to local use.
Speaking at the global Co-WIN conclave being attended by health and technology experts from abroad, Modi said having been used in India, “you can be sure the software has been tested in the real world for speed and scale”.
Pointing out that vaccination is the best hope for the humanity to emerge successfully from the pandemic, PM Modi pointed out that right from the beginning, India had decided to adopt a completely digital approach while planning its vaccination strategy as it thought such an approach was necessary if the post pandemic world has to return to normalcy.
In addition, such proof must be safe, secure and trustworthy. People must have a record of when, where and by whom they have been vaccinated. Given how precious each dose of vaccine is, the government was also concerned that each dose should be tracked and wastage minimised. This was not possible without an end-to-end digital approach.
The Indian civilisation considers the world as one family and the pandemic made people realise the fundamental truth of this philosophy.
Co-WIN was prepared in an open-source format so that it could be available in any and all countries.
“Today’s conclave is the first time this platform is being introduced to all,” said the prime minister.
It is through this that India has administered 350 million doses of vaccine and a few days ago, it vaccinated 9 million in one day.
“They need not carry fragile pieces of paper. It is all available in digital format. This software can be customised in any country as per local requirements,” he said.
The prime minister said despite all its constraints, India had tried to share as much as possible with the world as well as remained eager to learn from global practices.
“Technology is integral to the fight against Covid. Luckily software is one area in which there are no resource constraints. That is why we made Covid tracing as open-source as soon as it was technically feasible. With nearly 200 million users Arogya Setu is also a readily available package for developers,” offered the PM.
The government has claimed that about 50 countries, including Canada, Mexico, Nigeria, Panama and Uganda, have shown interest in knowing about Co-WIN.
The virtual meet is seeing participation from health and technology experts representing countries across the world. The conclave aims to share India’s experience with regards to universal vaccination to fight Covid through Co-WIN.
India developed Co-WIN as the central information technology (IT) system for strategising, implementing, monitoring and evaluating Covid vaccination.
