The COVID-19 vaccination on Saturday was temporarily suspended in Maharashtra, as per the Health Department of the state. The move was taken across the entire state till January 18 (Monday) due to technical issues with the CoWIN App.

Confirming the same, Maharashtra public health minister Rajesh Tope said, “Not just in Maharashtra, everywhere in the country this app created problems in the execution of vaccination drive. We have decided to suspend the vaccination for the next two days. On January 8, when dry run was conducted, and again today I specifically pointed out problems with the CoWIN app and Union Minister Harsh Vardhan said he will look into it.”

The CoWIN application, being used to tally beneficiaries, suffered glitches through the day, slowing the inoculation process in the state, on the first day of the massive vaccination drive in the country against COVID-19.

Due to the technical fault in the app, the target of 4,000 could not be met on Saturday as per officials.

As per an official statement, the vaccination has been postponed for two days on January 17-18. “While implementing the COVID-19 vaccination campaign today (January 16, 2021), it was noticed that technical problems were occurring in the CoWIN app. Efforts are being made by the Central Government to address this problem.”

In West Bengal too, health workers had trouble uploading beneficiary data, as the app had reportedly slowed down. Tamil Nadu officials in Nilgiris too reported that they were unable to send post-vaccination acknowledgement to several beneficiaries.

The indigenous Covaxin vaccine was administered to 385 healthcare workers at six centres. In other centres, Covishield vaccine was used.