The government on Thursday said its advice to states and union territories to obtain permission before sharing eVIN data on vaccine stocks and temperature of storage is to prevent any misuse of this information by various agencies for commercial purposes.

The Health Ministry clarification comes in the wake of media reports about the Centre writing to the states and UTs, advising them not to share the data of the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN) system on vaccine stocks and the temperature of vaccine storage at public forums without prior consent, and stating that it is a "sensitive information and to be used only for programme improvement".