CoWIN portal to have information in 14 languages including Hindi from next week

New Delhi: From next week, information on the CoWIN portal will be available in Hindi and 14 regional languages, along with 17 more laboratories that have been added to monitor Covid-19 variants. 

According to the statement issued by the government, these decisions were taken during the 26th meeting of the High-Level meeting of Group of Ministers (GoM) held on Monday on Covid-19 under the chairmanship of Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan.

Dr Vardhan also told his cabinet colleagues that 17 new laboratories would be added to the INSACOG network to enhance the testing of samples. 'The Indian SARS-COV 2 Consortium on Genomics' is a group of ten national laboratories spread across the country, which was established by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on December 25 last year.

The work of this committee is to develop a genome chain of the coronavirus and to explore the relationship between genome variants and the pandemic. The health minister said, "For the first time after 26 days in India, the number of new cases of coronavirus infection has come below three lakhs. Also, there has been a decline of 1,01,461 in the number of patients undergoing treatment in the last 24 hours." 

He also lauded the efforts of defence scientists and the Minister of Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for releasing 2-DG, the country's first anti-COVID-19 drug.

The Health Minister informed the members that this drug can prove to be very important in dealing with the pandemic in the country as its use can reduce the dependence of oxygen support for COVID-19 patients. 

According to the statement, the Union Health Minister said that the Center is continuously assisting the states to deal with the pandemic. More than 4.22 crore N-95 masks, 1.76 crore PPE kits, 52.64 lakh Remdesivir vials and 45,066 ventilators have been given to states and union territories.