The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and NITI Aayog have launched a United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-supported ‘City-to-City COVID-19 Vaccination Learning Exchange (CoVLEx) initiative to build a global COVID-19 vaccination knowledge management platform and initiate an exchange of ideas and learnings on pandemic response.

The CoVLEx platform will develop knowledge products such as an interactive web-based knowledge portal, best practices compendium, and organise virtual forums for cities and countries to learn from each other’s experiences.

The discussion topics will range from vaccine procurement, governance, digital innovations planning, and management, vaccine supply chain, communications and social mobilisation, capacity building, adverse events following immunisation, and monitoring and supervision. 

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries have been thrown into challenging situations concerning response and recovery, particularly those without domestic vaccine production capacities in the Global South. Despite the challenges along the way, several countries have also tried to implement innovative solutions through collaborations, technology, and private sector engagement.

As part of the initiative, 15 Indian and global cities will initially participate to engage with more cities in the future. COVID-19 vaccination strategies have the potential to be a game-changer in strengthening national routine immunisation programmes, which in turn will contribute to delivering effective primary healthcare services and accelerate progress towards achieving universal healthcare.