India’s Covid-19 vaccine distribution platform CoWin will be made open-source for use by all other countries. Soon, CoWin and its technology will help multiple countries combat the pandemic. Announcing the decision, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said:
“Despite all our constraints, we have tried to share as much as possible with the world. And we remain eager to learn from global practices. Technology is integral to our fight against covid. Luckily, software is one area in which there are no resource constraints.”
At the CoWin Global Conclave, the Prime Minister made this announcement. The conclave was a virtual gathering of 142 countries’ health and technology specialists. The PM emphasized India’s commitment to sharing its experiences, skills, and resources with the international community, as well as the government’s readiness to learn from global best practices. He further said:
“That’s why India made its covid tracking and tracing app open source as soon as it was technically feasible. With nearly 200 million users, the ‘Aarogya Setu’ app is a readily available package for developers.”
The PM further added that end-to-end digital approach made it possible to track and reduce wastage of vaccines.
India has made the platform available to partner countries as a global public good that can be developed and scaled up for health treatments all across the world. The platform is also available to the Covid Technology Access Pool of the World Health Organization (C-TAP).
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