The Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) is a technological solution functional in 32 States that will be expanded to all States to strengthen immunisation supply chain systems across the country, especially during pandemic, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has stated.

To support the government’s efforts to combat Covid-19, eVIN India is helping the State and UT governments monitor the supply chain of Covid response material. Since April 2020, eight States — Tripura, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Maharashtra — are using the eVIN application with 100 per cent adherence rate to track State-specific Covid-19 material supplies, ensure availability and raise alerts in case of shortage of 81 essential drugs and equipment.

“This platform has the potential to be leveraged for any new vaccine including Covid-19 vaccine, as and when available,” MoHFW has stated. For routine immunisation purposes, eVIN has reached 32 States and Union Territories and will soon be rolled-out in the remaining States and UTs of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Ladakh and Sikkim, a press release issued by MoHFW said.

“At present, 23,507 cold chain points across 585 districts of 22 States and two UTs routinely use the eVIN technology for efficient vaccine logistics management. Over 41,420 vaccine cold chain handlers have been introduced to digital record-keeping by training them on eVIN. Nearly, 23,900 electronic temperature loggers have been installed on vaccine cold chain equipment for accurate temperature review of vaccines in storage,” it said.

eVIN aims to provide real-time information on vaccine stocks and flows, and storage temperatures across all cold chain points in the country. This system has been used with the requisite customisation during the pandemic for ensuring continuation of the essential immunisation services and protecting our children and pregnant mothers against vaccine preventable diseases.

It further says the network has helped create a big data architecture that generates actionable analytics encouraging data-driven decision-making and consumption based planning that helps in maintaining optimum stocks of vaccines leading to cost savings. Vaccine availability at all times has increased to 99 per cent in most health centres. An activity rate of more than 99 per cent reflects high adoption of the technology across all health centres where eVIN is currently operational.

While instances of stock-outs have reduced by 80 per cent, the time taken to replenish stocks has also decreased by more than half, on an average. “This has ensured that every child who reaches the immunisation session site is immunised, and not turned back due to unavailability of vaccines. eVIN combines state-of-the-art technology, a strong IT infrastructure and trained human resources to enable real time monitoring of stock and storage temperature of the vaccines kept in multiple locations across the country,” the Health Ministry has stated.

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