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Major Update regarding Edits in Vaccine Certificate! CoWIN Portal now allows you to Edit Name, Gender, Birth Year on Vaccination Certificate.
In March, a 72-year-old man from Nagpur took the Covidsheild Vaccine against COVID-19. The certificate that he received mentioned that he took a dose of Covaxin at a centre in South-West Delhi. It took an NGO and the Mumbai Municipal Corporation to help them. In another case, a 100-year-old woman took her vaccine and the certificate mentioned her gender as male. “I took the first dose of the vaccine on April 1 and there was a spelling error in my name. When I went to take the second dose, the person who checked my certificate denied me verification, and I could not take the second dose,” stated another victim.
“My wife's covid certificate appears wrong. Only her name is correct, rest all - her gender states male, her date of birth is wrong, her Aadhar card number shows my Aadhar card number. I am a senior citizen and I need help to change these so she can take her second dose,” another victim pressed. “My mother took her covid vaccine through walk-in registration. She was standing right there and the nurse there put her gender as male. The certificate also shows her name with an extra 'S'. I have tried calling the private hospital, 1075 and written to the email ID from the Cowin website. A guide suggested that I use the Aarogya Setu app. But it had no option,” an in-house member from the team said.
“My wife and I took the 2nd Dose of the vaccine at Chennai on 26 Apr. The Certificate shows that we have taken the 1st Dose on 26 Apr. How to correct this?” asks another victim of errors. “There should be a standard protocol for correcting mistakes in the certificates with incorrect details,” said another citizen. “There is no use in having helpline numbers and emails. The phone numbers are always busy, when we email them, they don't respond. Can the government not have a dedicated email ID where people can write and get the certificate reissued with correct particulars?”
These are some testimonials from the public.
In the vaccinated population of 16 crores, we have over a thousand people who are a victim of mistakes in their vaccine certificates. This could lead to not receiving a second dose or the final certificate of the vaccine. But the helplines are so busy, it is impossible to get a technical solution from them.
On April 13, The Hindu reported that RS Sharma, Chairman, Empowered Group on COVID vaccination confirmed that they will soon launch software that will allow correction of information on final vaccination certificates. He had stated that the software would be in place within the next couple of days. It would allow some minor changes in the spelling of a name or mistakes in the surname etc.
According to the interaction, Dr Sharma also said that the current system record an Immutable Vaccination Event Record (IVER). “If we allow it to be changed, then all kinds of problems could occur. People can misuse it to get the certificate by changing the names of the person etc. Hence, we did not have any provision for change in the IVER. The change we are putting in place, through deploying a patch, allows correction of spelling errors in a name or gender
This was a month ago. We have no update on the same still.
How can you change the errors in the Vaccine Certificates?
As of now, you need to talk to the hospital or the local Government body like Nagar Nigam, Nagar Palika etc. Other than that, if you have not got your vaccine yet, you can delete the registration and re-register. But you cannot edit your errors in the certificate.
Note: A call with the Director-General Neeta Verma, NIC didn't go through, so this story will be updated with comments from her.
Update:
Update: In case of errors in the Vaccination Certificate, the vaccinator can rectify it: Health Ministry