With COVID-19 vaccination picking up in the State, technical glitches and errors in data entry have been reported. While some who were vaccinated faced a delay in getting the vaccination certificate, many others were left in a fix after they received certificates with the wrong dates of them getting the shots.
After a slow start, vaccination coverage has increased in the State, especially after it was opened up for senior citizens and persons aged 45 to 59 years with co-morbidities on March 1. However, a few glitches have cropped up.
While some residents in the city complained that there was a delay in getting the vaccination certificate, a number of others were surprised to find the date of vaccination wrong in their certificates.
A 69-year-old resident of Madipakkam, who was vaccinated at a nearby primary health centre, received a certificate with a wrong date of vaccination.
He was vaccinated on March 9, while the certificate mentioned the date as March 13. His age, too, was wrongly entered as 70. “My father got vaccinated on March 9, and did not receive the SMS link till March 12. The doctor said there was some issue with uploading the details. When he got his certificate on March 13, the date of vaccination was wrong.”
Another person, on condition of anonymity, said she received the vaccination at a private hospital in Chennai, but has ended up with two first dose certificates.
“I think the problem is in uploading information as the provisional certificate that came after the first dose said it was done a week later. Though I took the second dose, I landed with another provisional first shot certificate. I now have a second first dose certificate with a new reference number,” she said.
Similar issues were raised by a number of persons who received the vaccines in the city.
A government doctor in Chennai said the SMS that was sent after the second dose carried the wrong date of vaccination.
Officials of the Health Department said this may be due to data entry issues. “If there are any challenges in the vaccination certificates with regard to data discrepancies, we will get it rectified over a period of time,” an official said.