Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia launched a scathing attack on the Union government over its advice to states and Union territories not to share the data of the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) system on vaccine stocks and the temperature of vaccine storage at public forums.

In a tweet, Sisodia said he was amazed at the order of the Central government that prevents states from sharing information regarding vaccine stocks.

“The Central govt needs to focus on ensuring an adequate supply of vaccine to all, rather than hiding the true position of vaccine availability, from the public,” the Deputy CM said.

‘Want to prevent misuse of data by various agencies for commercial purpose’

This statement from Sisodia comes after the Union government issued a clarification saying preventing any misuse of “sensitive” eVIN data for unauthorised commercial purposes is its top priority. 

In a letter to the states, the Union health ministry said the Centre, with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has rolled out the eVIN system under UIP, which is used to track the vaccine stock status and the temperature at all levels of vaccine storage, from national to the sub-district level.

The letter further states that it was overwhelming to see that all the states are using the system to update the stock and transactions of COVID-19 vaccines on a daily basis.

‘Sharing of sensitive E-VIN data requires the Health Ministry’s prior consent’

The Centre also stressed that all the data and analytics generated by eVIN is owned by the Ministry of Health and therefore it “must not be shared with any other organisation, partner agency, media agency, online and offline public forums without the consent of the ministry.”

It further said that crucial information related to specific vaccine usage can be used to manipulate the market as well as associated research with respect to various vaccines and cold chain equipment.