MOH begins digitising Covid vaccination records

─ verification of vaccination to become easier

The Ministry of Health has begun the digitisation of the Covid-19 vaccination records, which will make it easier to verify the authenticity of a person who claims to have been vaccinated.

During the Covid-19 update on Wednesday, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony revealed that the ministry has already hired staff who are inputting the data into computers.

“The ministry has put together a team, we have about 10 persons who are working on digitising those records and that work is continuing.”

Minister Anthony noted that the government is currently working with the Government of India to get the software CoWin, to transfer the data for optimum use.

“Those discussions have not been concluded as yet, but it’s ongoing and we are hopeful that once those discussions conclude that we would be able to get the software right… We have digitised the records but we now have to import it into a software so that you know you can have easy reference and so forth,” Dr. Anthony said.

When this process is over, places such as the airports can verify the authenticity of a person’s vaccination status, as a number of persons would have bought vaccination cards and may be able to bypass the current manual verification method.

Only a few days ago, media outlets reported that a number of nurses have been nabbed in a major vaccination booklet scam. The nurses allegedly sold over 500 vaccination cards, pocketing millions.

As such, Minister Anthony said persons who may have information of the purchasers of the vaccination cards, should provide the Guyana Police Force with the names of those individuals to crack down on the corruption.

Apart from the illegality of purchasing a vaccination card, Minister Anthony said the purchasers also pose as a health threat to the vaccinated population.

“Imagine somebody in possession of a fake vaccination card, if that person gets sick, coming to the hospital and, you know, they have a severe form of COVID, and doctors might falsely believe they have been vaccinated, they would have had produced antibodies, and so forth.

So, it is going to be a challenge with these fake cards circulating and not knowing the true status of the person.”

Meanwhile, other persons have recognised the importance of the vaccines and have been coming forward and taking their jabs. So far, the Ministry of Health has administered more than 730,000 vaccines countrywide.