Tamil Nadu will focus on U-WIN, a one-stop, end-to-end digital platform for monitoring and tracking of pregnant women and children for routine immunisation. After launching the platform on a pilot basis in Dindigul and Erode districts early this year, the Health Department is working on expanding it to the rest of the State.
According to health officials, Tamil Nadu started the Expanded Programme on Immunization against six vaccine-preventable diseases in 1978 and strengthened it further as Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) in 1985. Around 10 lakh antenatal women and 9.16 lakh children are given 11 vaccines against 12 vaccine-preventable diseases under UIP. The State has consistently been achieving 95% in immunisation coverage.
For routine immunisation, vaccines and logistics are being monitored through the eVIN programme and the COVID-19 vaccination is monitored through CoWIN. Based on this, the Government of India planned to build a third platform — U-WIN — for digitising routine immunisation services under UIP in the country. U-WIN, according to T.S. Selvavinayagam, Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, is a one-stop, single, end-to-end digital platform for monitoring and tracking of routine immunisation with the Union government’s support. This would facilitate tracking of every pregnant woman, newborn child and adolescent for vaccination. Once registered, the targeted beneficiaries would receive messages from U-WIN for the upcoming vaccination doses under UIP. They would receive acknowledgement after every dose so that it could be tracked any time. The beneficiaries need not carry the hardcopy and can download the certificate from the portal.
“At the field level, village health nurses and at the institution level, staff nurses would be handling the application. After the pilot launch in Dindigul and Erode, our staff felt it was a simple application and came with certain advantages; they know what vaccines should be taken to which place and can generate reports from their mobile phones. Youngsters are more comfortable with such applications, and they know that once a pregnant women is registered, the work becomes easier and all that is needed is the click of a button,” Dr. Selvavinayagam said.
With the Union government asking that U-WIN be expanded to other districts in the State before July 31, the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine has taken measures, starting with an orientation programme for State officials and a two-day hands-on training for district officials — deputy directors of health services and city health officers.
“They should know how to create an admin portal. They should understand who is the service provider — medical officer or staff nurse or Village Health Nurse — and have the health facility register — primary health centre, camps or outreach programmes,” he said. Training would next be taken to the other levels. Once completed, they would start using the platform, he added.
