The newly launched U-WIN app could help India to overcome the limitation in keeping track of vaccination doses for children, Dr Mangesh Gadhari, UNICEF India health officer, told News18.

The ministry of health and family welfare has launched U-WIN to digitise India’s universal vaccination programme based on the success of the CoWIN platform – replicating the same concept. The pilot has been launched across India and manual entry of data from the registers to software has already begun.

During a media field visit at PHC Pilliem Dharbandora, Goa, Gadhari, in a response on U-WIN routine immunisation portal launched in February by the government of Goa as pilot, said it was “an excellent way of leveraging technology to track missed children".

“For decades, healthcare authorities and service providers have been facing the challenge of keeping track of the next dose of routine immunisation to children and also facing challenges with caregivers not bringing the maternal child protection (MCP) card during immunisation,” Gadhari said in an exclusive interaction.

Therefore, the U-WIN app will help with booking slots and sending reminders before, as well as, on the due date, Gadhari said. "From booking slots, sending reminders before and on the due date to maintaining records and certificates (of the vaccination doses for children), it (the U-WIN app) made the entire process easy, trackable and smooth," he added.

The app will also help with the problem of intrastate, interstate, intradistrict or interdistrict migration of families as the vaccine acknowledgement and immunisation cards linked to ABHA ID (Ayushman Bharat Heath Account) can be accessed by all states and districts through a common database.

Besides, it will further help the country battle with the problem of ‘Missed Children’, also called ‘zero dose children’, who fail to receive even a single dose of vaccination.  Meanwhile, there are approximately three lakh 'zero dose children' in India.

Another challenge for the immunisation programme, he said, was with the intrastate or interstate or intradistrict or interdistrict migration of families.

“With the rollout of U-WIN for pregnant women and children, vaccine acknowledgement and immunisation cards linked to ABHA ID (Ayushman Bharat Heath Account) will be generated and all states and districts can access a common database to track and vaccinate programme participants (in this case pregnant women and children).”

The pilot app has already been launched across the country and manual entry of data from the registers to software has started as well, according to the ministry. The U-WIN app aims to cater to 2.6 crore newborns and 2.9 crore pregnant women every year.

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