Vaccine gamechanger? CoWin app team opens APIs for third party apps; all you need to know

Ahead of the vaccination registration for people above 18 years of age, the Co-WIN team has opened up Co-Win Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The APIs can be used for third-party apps through which the users can get registered for vaccination. Co-WIN chief RS Sharma took to Twitter and stated that the APIs have been opened up for vacancies search and downloading certificates of vaccinations for third-party applications.

The APIs can be found on the government's API Setu website which contains authentication, metadata, beneficiary registration, vaccination appointment and certificate APIs. With these APIs, the third party users can access information like vaccination centres, list of districts, vaccination appointments among others. 

Vaccine registration for 18+

The registration of vaccination for people above 18 years of age is set to begin at 4 pm on Wednesday. People can use the http://cowin.gov.in platform or get registered through the government's Aarogya Setu app. Earlier on Tuesday, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan took to Twitter and urged citizens above 18 years of age to get vaccinated against COVID-19 from May 1. 

The third phase of vaccination is set to commence on May 1. Earlier, the vaccination drive was limited to people aged 45 years and above. Growing concerns around the situation led to the Centre asking manufacturing companies to scale up their production. with the help of International as well as national players. In addition, the manufacturers have been allowed to supply 50 per cent of the vaccines to state and private hospitals directly. The states and the private hospitals can procure the vaccines at a price decided by the manufacturers. As of now, India is using two vaccines to inoculate its citizens - Covaxin and Covishield. 

Image Credits: PTI/cowin.gov.in