India's COVID-19 contact tracing app - Aarogya Setu which was introduced earlier in the first wave of pandemic outbreak by the government has been updated now to show the vaccination status of a person. The app was introduced to trace contact and for dissemination of medical advisories intended to contain the spread of Covid-19 in India and is currently maintained by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
In a tweet, Aarogya Setu notified, “Now your Vaccination Status can be updated on Aarogya Setu. Get your self vaccinated - Get the Double Blue Ticks and Get the Blue Shield."
How Aarogya Setu works?
The application uses Bluetooth and the personal contact number of a person to mark them as either Covid-19 positive or negative. All Covid-19 test results are uploaded by the laboratory which have analysed the samples to the Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR’s) online portal.
Once a person tests positive for the coronavirus disease, ICMR then shares the user’s contact number with the Aarogya Setu based on which the person is marked as Covid-19 positive in the app—indicated by status changed to red colour).
As far as vaccination is concerned, the app can be used by the beneficiaries to register themselves apart from the Co-WIN digital platform.
India began its massive vaccination driive on January 16 and its third phase commenced on May 1 where inoculatioon of 18-44 age group also began. Two vaccines - Covishield manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and Covaxin manufactured by Bharat Biotech are being used for vaccination in India. Now, Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine has also received approval for usage in the country. Yesterday the prodcution of Sputnik V was launced in the country and nearly 100 million doses shall be produced in India per year.
So far, 198,538,999 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered to eligible beneficiaries in the country.
