App to ensure that all 12 lakh health care and frontline workers in Andhra Pradesh are vaccinated in quick time

A health worker being administered vaccine at Korukollu village in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, in January.

With the number of COVID-19 cases spiralling in Andhra Pradesh, the administration has decided to ensure that its entire 12-lakh-strong frontline health workers and health care workers have been administered at least the first dose of the vaccine if not both doses. The State government believes that is the first step to be taken to cope with raging case numbers.

Andhra Pradesh has developed, and launched, an application for the “online monitoring and capturing of all individual vaccination data/information from every corner of the State”. All medical officers in the State would use this app to enter details such as when and where the individual got vaccinated and which vaccine dose, Covishield or Covaxin, he or she received.

The app, a crucial cog in the State’s ‘FLW and HCW Drive’, will help Andhra Pradesh, which has until now vaccinated approximately 50 per cent of its 4.9 lakh health care and 7.37 lakh frontline workers, cover the remaining 50 per cent. The APP will be operational in the hands of all the State’s medical officers, starting April 19, the day Andhra Pradesh will commence and hope to complete its ‘Drive’ to vaccinate all its frontline health workers and healthcare workers.

Explaining the working of the app, Dr Arja Srikanth, Andhra Pradesh’s COVID-19 nodal officer, said that every medical officer would be provided with a username and password. Once the medical officer logins in he/she will be able to access the entire list of unvaccinated frontline workers and health care workers. The details of frontline workers and health care workers can also be ascertained by using the designated registration ID or mobile number or name of the individual.”

Srikanth added that an SMS alert would be sent to each frontline worker and health care worker’s mobile, informing them of when they need to go for their vaccination. The Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy government, through the State Medical and Family Welfare Department, has directed that all frontline workers and health care workers need to comply and adhere to the SMS alerted time slots and get themselves vaccinated by April 19.

The ‘FLW and HCW Drive’ comes two days after the Centre dispatched an additional 6 lakh doses of vaccine to the State. The consignment consisted of at least five lakh doses of Covishield and one lakh Covaxin. The Chief Minister had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him for 60 lakh additional doses for the State. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s contention is that Andhra Pradesh, which until April 17 had administered 46,06,806 vaccine doses, needs another 60 lakh doses of the vaccine if it is to ensure that all its citizens above the age of 45 years are given the first dose of the vaccine during the next three weeks.