India to offer its vaccination app CoWIN for global community

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during the CoWIN Global Conclave, July 5. Captured from Zoom

By Kwon Mee-yoo

India plans to share its digital vaccination platform with the world to fight the COVID-19 pandemic together.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during the virtual CoWIN Global Conclave, July 5, that the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is that all countries have to work together and move ahead together for humanity and the human cause.

Modi emphasized that India has been committed to sharing all of its experiences, expertise and resources with the global community in this battle, despite all constraints, and India has tried to share as much as possible with the world since the beginning of this pandemic.

"Indian civilization considers the whole world as one family. This pandemic has made many people realize the fundamental truth of this philosophy. That is why our technology platform for COVID vaccination ― the platform we call CoWIN ― is being prepared to be made open source. Soon, it will be available to any and all countries. Today's conclave is the first step to introduce this platform to all of you,” Modi said during the event.

In an era when people must have a record of when, where and by whom they have been vaccinated and governments need to track each vaccine dose, an end-to-end digital approach is indispensable, he said.

"Vaccination is the best hope for humanity to emerge successfully from the pandemic. And right from the beginning, we India decided to adopt a completely digital approach while planning our vaccination strategy. In today's globalized world, if the post-pandemic world has to return to normalcy, such a digital approach is essential. After all, people must be able to prove that they have been vaccinated,” Modi said.

India has administered some 350 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines through this digital platform, inoculating about 9 million people in a day.

"They do not need to carry around fragile pieces of paper to prove anything. It is all available in digital format. But best of all, the software can be customized to any country as per their local requirements," he said.

Countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Guyana took part in the online conclave and welcomed India's role in providing vaccines globally and showed their intention to adopt the digital platform.