New Delhi: No fresh registrations for COVID vaccination will be allowed for healthcare and frontline workers, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has said.

In a letter dated Apr. 3, Bhushan wrote to all State Chief Secretaries informing them that the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry had received inputs that some vaccination centres were violating guidelines.

“Various inputs have been received from different sources that in some of the vaccination centres, some ineligible beneficiaries are being registered as HCWs and FLWs and are getting vaccinated in complete violation of the prescribed guidelines. There has been 24 percent increase in HCW database in the past few days,” he wrote. 

“This issue was discussed with State representatives and domain knowledge experts in the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC) meeting on Apr. 3 and as per the recommendation of NEGVAC it has been decided that no fresh registrations in categories of HCW and FLW will be allowed with immediate effect,” Bhushan wrote.

He added that registrations of persons aged 45 years and above will continue to be permitted on the CoWIN portal. Bhushan in his letter mentioned that even though the Government had fixed a deadline of Feb. 25 for HCWs and Mar. 6 for FLWs to be registered for the vaccination, in effect registrations had never stopped.

“All efforts have been made in close collaboration with States and  UTs to saturate vaccination of HCWs and FLWs. While tracking the progress, the timeline for completing vaccination of all HCWs and FLWs with the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine has been extended multiple times and was finally fixed as Feb.25 for HCWs and Mar. 6 for FLWs. Around one month has elapsed since these timelines and even after starting vaccination of population above 60 years of age, provision was made to register and vaccinate HCWs and FLWs with a view to ensure optimal coverage,” he wrote.