Indian health workers allege widespread vaccine certificate fraud | India

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Health workers on the frontline of India’s Covid vaccination program say people are officially registered as double vaccinated without receiving both doses due to pressure to meet government targets.

Workers described how easy it was to mistakenly register a second dose of vaccine for people who did not show up for appointments, using personal records of their first dose and choosing to bypass a code sent on their cell phone.

“There is no technical problem,” said Aditya, a health worker from Uttar Pradesh who requested that only his first name be used for fear of reprisals. “The problem is the unprecedented pressure on us to increase the number of people vaccinated.”

The vaccination status of all citizens is recorded on a government-built platform called CoWIN. CoWIN vaccination certificates are globally recognized and make individuals eligible for interstate and international travel, including to countries that only accept fully vaccinated passengers.

The government had set a deadline of the end of 2021 to get everyone in India vaccinated, which was missed. According to official statistics, 75% of the adult population has now received two doses. Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “proud of everyone making our vaccination campaign a success”.

However, health workers who spoke to the Guardian alleged the figures were manipulated and estimated that in urban areas 20-35% of people had been fraudulently registered as double-vaccinated. In rural areas, they estimated that figure could be as high as 40-60%.

A group of people wait to be vaccinated outside the government Covid vaccination center in Ghaziabad. Photography: Pradeep Gaur/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock ‘Shocking’

Manish Kumar, a 21-year-old student from Patna, Bihar, described how he went to a vaccination center in June last year when his sister, Puja Kumari, 28, received a text message on her phone saying she had successfully received her first vaccine.

When the siblings arrived at the center about an hour later, they raised the issue with the authorities and threatened legal action. “After that, they vaccinated all of us, including my sister, saying there was a technical problem and apologizing,” Kumar said.

But the same thing happened to Kumar’s father, Mukesh Prasad, a farmer, who was on his way to the vaccination center when he received a text message saying his second shot had been administered.

Another problem arose regarding Kumar’s second dose. In October, after moving 270km to attend Banaras Hindu University in neighboring Uttar Pradesh state, he received a message that he had just received his second dose at a health facility. from Patna. “I want some kind of protection against Covid-19, but how are my dad and I going to get the second vaccine?” asked Kumar.

Kaprela Hari, a 32-year-old IT professional from Rajampet in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh faced a similar problem for his father, a farmer, who had been too busy in the fields to take the time of his second date. Out of the blue, he received a text message confirming that his father had received a second dose of the vaccine and a link to the CoWIN certificate of double vaccination status.

“The nearby vaccination center opened at 11 a.m. and closed at 1 p.m., and it was not possible for me to get my father vaccinated during those two hours,” Hari said. “So I was surprised when I got the vaccination message.”

After raising the matter with a health worker stationed in his locality, Hari said he was told the local facility was not responsible and that his father “should have shown up in time for the vaccination”. .

Hari concluded that the data was “manipulated”.

The deceased also appear to be receiving vaccination certificates in an apparent attempt to increase the number. In January, Uday Bir Singh was having lunch with relatives at a restaurant when he received a text message: “Dear Manju Rani, you have been successfully vaccinated with your second dose. A click on the link attached to the message revealed the vaccination certificate of his wife, Rani, who had died of Covid eight months earlier.

“It looked like a cruel joke,” said Akanksha, Singh’s daughter. “How could my mother have been vaccinated in January 2022 when she died in May 2021? We felt devastated and didn’t understand how it happened.

In a statement, the government denied any vaccine fraud, saying each vaccination team had a “verifier” whose only job was to confirm the identity of those vaccinated.

“[The] The CoWIN system is an inclusive platform and was designed keeping in mind the limitations and challenges of mobile and internet availability across the country,” the government said. “The functionality and flexibility needed to ensure that every eligible individual has access to vaccination, regardless of physical, digital or socio-economic barriers to access, has been built into CoWIN.

“At the same time, the SOPs [standard operating procedures] and features have been incorporated to prevent fraudulent and/or erroneous data entry at the time of vaccination.

India’s healthcare system is woefully underfunded and under-resourced, and the immunization program has put more pressure on frontline healthcare workers, who work long hours on low pay. Several workers said the practice of falsely recording people as fully vaccinated resulted from threats by senior officials to suspend workers or withhold wages if vaccination targets were not met.

“I was slapped in a meeting by a district level official who was unhappy with the number of vaccinations we did,” said a 45-year-old health worker from Bihar. “The official later called me and apologized, saying there was enormous pressure from the Minister of State.”

Wahida, a health worker from Jammu and Kashmir, said: “The easiest way out is to register people no matter what. It’s less hectic and the officials are also happy.

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