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1
The opportunity and obligation to strengthen national immunization programs
Felicity Cutts and Robin Biellik, Consultants to BMGF, December 2010
Summary and recommendations
Vaccine-preventable disease (VPD) control is one of the operationally simplest and financially most
cost-effective public health interventions available. Immunization only achieves its greatest potential
to avoid illness and save lives, however, when it is extended to all corners of society. New, more
expensive vaccines such as pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) and rotavirus vaccine (RV) are a
means to prevent diseases which commonly kill children in impoverished communities. In
communities with access to high-quality curative care for pneumonia and diarrhoea, however,
mortality from these conditions may already be low. It is essential for these vaccines to reach the
hard-to-reach groups. The magnitude of immunization's contribution to the achievement of
Millenium Development Goal 4 (MDG4: reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-
five mortality rate) depends upon our ability to achieve and sustain universal vaccination coverage in
all countries and districts and to overcome geographic, political, socio-economic or cultural barriers to
effective provision and use of health services.
Despite considerable progress since the inception of the global Expanded Program on Immunization
(EPI) in 1974, routine vaccination coverage during the past 5 years (2005-09) fell or remained
stagnant at inadequate levels in 21 of the lowest-income countries. Many of the countries, and areas
within countries with the highest numbers of unvaccinated or incompletely-vaccinated children,
including Chad, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan, also have high under-five mortality
rates. In some of these countries, governments do not recognize that coverage is low and thus lack
commitment to improving it.
A competently-managed, well-resourced and financially sustainable routine immunization (RI)
program provides the platform upon which new vaccines and vaccination technologies can be
introduced, elimination/eradication initiatives implemented and other essential interventions delivered
successfully. Hence, it is essential for programs to enjoy appropriately skilled and deployed human
resources, an uninterrupted flow of vaccines and injection supplies, and a logistics system with
appropriately maintained and utilized controlled temperature chain and transport. This infrastructure
must be complemented by timely and accurate coverage and adverse events monitoring, VPD
surveillance and outbreak response, social mobilization and public and professional Information,
Education and Communication (IEC). To achieve and sustain programmatic success, a solid base of
political commitment, effective management and reliable financing is required. Countries with this
solid foundation have reduced VPD morbidity and mortality to low levels and introduced new
vaccines and technologies smoothly to further protect their populations.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2010, Bill and Melinda Gates announced their
unprecedented commitment to realizing the potential of vaccines with a $10 billion donation for a
"Decade of Vaccines". At the same time, they and others continue their commitment to the Global
Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). As long as Wild Polio Virus (WPV) transmission has not been
interrupted worldwide, all polio-free countries and areas remain at risk of re-importation. From 2003
to 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) recorded 133 WPV importation events in 29
previously polio-free countries, leading to 60 outbreaks and a total burden of 2193 polio cases. The
risk of importation with subsequent spread was highest in countries immediately bordering endemic
countries, and was also higher in countries with low coverage of routine immunization. There is thus
both opportunity and obligation to improve countries' capacity to reduce mortality in communities at
greatest need by strengthening their routine immunization programs.
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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, recognizing the importance of a strong
immunization platform to the achievement of polio eradication and realization of the potential impact
of new vaccines, has embarked on a strategic planning process to further define its role in improving
routine immunization services. To complement the investments previously made in this area, such as
the Africa Routine Immunization System Essentials (ARISE) project being conducted by John Snow,
Inc., the Foundation commissioned the authors to undertake a detailed review of vaccination coverage
data, review the published and grey-literature evaluations of mechanisms to overcome barriers to
raising coverage and improve the quality of routine service delivery, and undertake key informant
interviews with experienced national EPI managers and senior staff serving with partner agencies in
headquarters, regions and countries.
Our review highlighted that many successful interventions have been documented over the years.
Improving program management through a comprehensive, district-based approach such as "Reaching
Every District" (RED), conducting door-to-door visits (channeling) to identify and refer eligible
children for vaccination at nearby vaccination sites, using flexibility in vaccine delivery through
outreach vaccination strategies, use of community health workers, and the deployment of mobile
teams into geographic areas with difficult access have all been successful in specific settings, although
their costs and cost-effectiveness are less well documented. In recent years, the conduct of media-
enhanced Immunization Days or Weeks at national or regional levels ("periodic intensification of
routine immunization") has become common, but the contribution of such efforts to increasing
coverage has been poorly documented to date.
There are many tools available to help program managers improve planning and monitoring. These
include methodologies for assessing missed opportunities for vaccination, templates for effective
micro-planning from districts up to the national level, modules for training health workers, checklists
for supportive supervision, tools for assessing vaccine storage and handling, and guidelines for
conducting coverage reviews and surveillance assessments, and they have been used with positive
impact in many settings. Efforts to increase political commitment, accountability and financial
sustainability in developing countries have also been initiated. The risk factors associated with
unvaccinated and incompletely-vaccinated children have been documented extensively. With few
exceptions, the reasons for chronic under-performance among certain EPI programs are understood
and the tools are available to maximize vaccination coverage and the quality of service delivery, but
what has been lacking in some countries is commitment, coordination and management. When
national and district managers lack a solid foundation of management training, the plethora of tools
may confuse rather than aid them, and lack of career development opportunities or bureaucratic
obstacles to innovation reduce the motivation to use available tools.
We argue that BMGF's Decade of Vaccines should kick-start investment in management capacity and
set the foundation for decades of effective health care. With an adequate project time-frame, a
generation of strong managers can be built, with lasting impact on delivery of vaccines and essential
public health interventions. Monitoring, learning and evaluation (MLE) of programs to strengthen
managerial capacity will help convince countries to take greater domestic responsibility for EPI
financing and also to utilize international funding (such as funds for Health Systems Strengthening
from the GAVI Alliance) more efficiently. Synergies can be achieved through alignment of our
recommended actions with the BMGF-supported Optimize Project and a recent proposal for logistics
support and training from WHO to BMGF, and also with the on-going transition of GPEI field staff to
monitor and analyze key process indicators on routine immunization service delivery and provide
supervision and other support where appropriate. With effective coordination, these projects could
make a concerted effort to reverse the chronic under-performance of critical EPI programs.
Our recommendations are divided broadly into two categories: demonstration of best practices in
strengthening district health services management, and investing in future generations by improving
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education as an incentive to improve health care and a means to raise the standard of human resources
for health. The table shows suggested timeframes, critical indicators and approximate budgets for
these, and more detail of the activities under each category is proposed below.
Table: Recommended activities and outputs to support routine immunization
Activity &
timeframe
Outputs/critical indicators
Approximate
Budget estimates
Senior
management
advisors for
MLE in 4
strategic
locations for
5 years
In each site, national transport and vaccine supply chain assessments
conducted, action plan developed, improved utilization and efficiency
documented within 3 yrs and government posts for logistics and
transport officers created and filled by year 5
In each site, management tool used at district level and improved
coverage of hard-to-reach communities documented
Mentoring of trainees and graduates from health management training
program done (>10 per site over years 2-5)
At least 2 operational research studies done in each site demonstrating
cost-effective interventions to increase coverage
Where posts are at country level, DTP3 and measles coverage in each
country reaches 90% by year 3 and is sustained to year 5 and beyond
Immunization is line item in national budget and amount increases over
time
National personnel develop successful grant proposals to international
agencies for continued funding of immunization strengthening
$5 million
($1.25 million
per site)
Health
management
training
program (5
years)
Program developed (yr 1-2)
Students attracted and trained (>30 in year 2, increasing to >100/yr by
year 5)
Funding attracted to continue the program
$15 million ($3
million start-up;
$1.5 million per
year running
costs to host
institutions and
$1.5 million
per year tuition
fees years 2-5)
Development
and use of
practical
tools to
improve
management
Tool developed and piloted (yr 1)
Senior managers demonstrate improved effectiveness of service delivery
after using tool (yr 2)
Tool made available on intemet and included in short-term and long-
term training courses (yr 3)
$600,000
Operational
research
studies (4
years)
Studies completed and results are used to improve program planning
and monitoring, and to shape grant proposals for continued funding of
cost-effective interventions and strategies
$10 million
Include
management
in pre-service
nurse and
doctor
training (3
years)
Training modules developed or adapted and translated into multiple
languages (years 1-2)
Management training incorporated in basic training in sites where senior
personnel located (year 2)
Nursing and medical associations recommend inclusion of management
training in all countries (year 3)
$1 million
Investing in
education (20
Improved teacher training techniques developed
Improved learning techniques for young children developed and
$100 million
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years)
implemented
Improved learning techniques for high school children developed and
implemented
Child-to-child IEC programs implemented
Literacy rates increased
Demonstration of sustained reductions in neonatal, infant and child
mortality by improving educational status of women and communities.
•
A. Demonstration of best practices in strengthening district health services management.
I. Funding of senior management advisors in 4 key strategic locations for Monitoring Learning
and Evaluation of efforts to improve planning, management and monitoring of vaccination at
country and regional levels (and eventually of other health interventions). They will participate
in activities 2-5 below.
There are different potential mechanisms to fund staff (e.g. via an international agency such as
WHO or UNICEF, or via a non-governmental organization (NGO)), each having potential
advantages and disadvantages. In EMR and SEAR, secondment of staff to WHO regional offices
with a mandate to focus on specific countries is likely to be effective and appropriate. In AFR,
secondment of staff to country level (Ministry of Health, WHO or UNICEF country offices) may
be more appropriate to ensure maximum field-based work and MLE. An experienced NGO could
be contracted to arrange these secondments and to participate in the other activities below.
Potential locations where we would suggest funding for staff for MLE include:
•
A country in eastern or southern Africa which has coverage of 70-80% but has the potential to
do more, and where improved management and increased advocacy could make a big
difference. Examples include Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia.
•
A country in western or central Africa which has had chronically low national coverage (but
may have some better-performing districts). Examples include CAR (which is included in the
CASE project), Guinea, Liberia, Niger.
•
SEAR regional office to focus particularly on India (including disseminating lessons to be
learned in the Bihar project), Indonesia and Nepal.
•
EMR regional office to cover the 5 larger GAVI-eligible countries which have some of the
greatest challenges of geography and security, and ongoing polio transmission or threat of
importation, with particular focus on Pakistan.
These personnel will be critical to the implementation of the other components below, and to
analyzing, documenting and disseminating lessons learned. They will improve the monitoring of
inputs, outputs and impact of programs in under-performing countries. They will demonstrate how to
improve the functioning of inter-agency coordinating committees. They will advocate within-country
and at regional level for increasing domestic financing for immunization, learning from lessons from
the BMGF-supported project conducted by the Sabin Foundation. They will also liaise with WHO,
Optimize and Transaid/Riders for Health to advocate for countries to budget for posts in logistics and
transport management and to develop and recognize vocational training in these disciplines.
2. Development of a distance-based program of health management training that combines distance-
based theoretical learning with hands-on experience in the field and is tailor-made for low income
countries, leading to a diploma (for candidates with no prior university qualifications) or degree (for
doctors or other graduates).
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Such a program will develop core skills in planning, budgeting and financial management and
accounting, human resource management, logistics and transport management, monitoring and
evaluation, communications, grant application and advocacy. It should be predominantly field-based,
but with adequate theoretical background through a mixture of distance-based learning and short face-
to-face courses. It should be modular, with modules being available as stand-alone training modules
for a wider audience (e.g. recent nursing and medical school graduates) that may not yet be ready for
the complete masters-level training. It should have optional tracks for practical experience in different
areas (e.g. based on running vaccination programs; malaria, TB or HIV control programs, Maternal,
neonatal and child health programs etc) so that a wide variety of candidates and of funding sources
(e.g. GAVI or Global Fund HSS; British Council; bilateral agencies) will be attracted. It should learn
from the experience and approaches used by other long-term field-based training programs such as the
EPIVAC management training program for Francophone countries, and the Field Epidemiology and
Laboratory Training Program (FELTP) approach to capacity-building. It should also benefit from
lessons learned by Sabin Institute in advocacy with developing-country parliamentarians to achieve
sustainable domestic financing and accountability for public health interventions including EPI. It
should be linked to ongoing mentoring and interchange of experience between graduates, e.g. by
linking with Technet, Afenet and other networks. The staff placed in key countries/inter-country posts
should act as mentors for the program together with other in-country persons. The development of
this program can be done through partnership of schools of public health with organizations working
in low income countries and with WHO/UNICEF. Competitive bidding for finance from the
Foundation to develop and start-up (say, 5 years initial support including scholarships for students) the
program should be sought, and applicants should demonstrate a strategy for attracting other funding to
continue the program after this period.
3. Harmonizing existing tools to develop field-friendly, practical tools for conducting situation
analyses ("district mapping"), diagnosing the problems, planning and monitoring of essential health
interventions at national and district levels.
For this, BMGF could begin by hosting a convening of existing and recent grant-holders and key
agencies. The primary aim of the convening is to develop a comprehensive situation assessment and
planning tool, and to determine if further harmonization of monitoring tools is indicated and if so, how
this should be done. A core group of experts would plan (including development of a draft
comprehensive tool) and co-ordinate the convening. Participants could include the following:
•
Optimize (logistics and vaccine management tools and monitoring systems)
•
Transaid and Riders for Health: transport assessment and management tools
•
WHO IVB: comprehensive EPI program review tools, post-new vaccine introduction-
evaluation tools, and missed opportunity surveys; experience in developing accreditation
programs e.g. laboratories and National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs)
•
GPEI: community mapping; developing micro-plans; community involvement; tracking
children; monitoring and surveillance
•
Centers for Disease Control, John Snow Inc. and WHO AFRO: tools for monitoring and
evaluating RED implementation and using this to improve guidelines and strategies; ARISE
project lessons learnt to date on drivers of strong RI programs in the African region
•
Emory University: Evaluating the knowledge, attitudes and practices of immunization
providers in India
•
Vaccine Delivery Innovations Initiative — ethnographic methods to understand community
perspective on barriers to immunization
•
PATH: approach to assessing the performance of organizational systems (current grant) and
lessons learned from successful and cost-effective interventions to raise RI coverage and
quality (past grants from the Children Vaccine Program).
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•
Agence de Medecine Preventive: implementation of the EPIVAC training program in vaccine
management, use of a training network to develop advocacy; experience to date in forming
National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups and their role in improving RI
•
WHO and UNICEF Regional Advisors: lessons regarding utilization of tools at national and
district level and how to ensure that the harmonized tool will be practicable to use.
Once developed, the tool(s) will be piloted in countries where the key senior management personnel
(recommendation I) are located, then further adapted and disseminated. They will also be used as part
of the work experience of trainees in the program under (2). In addition, the convening will
encourage translation of lessons learned into WHO policies and procedures, for example discussion
with WHO IVB of the potential to develop an IVB accreditation program for transport management in
a similar way to its accreditation of vaccine stores, NRAs, and laboratories. It will also offer an
opportunity to forge relationships between the different agencies and potentially develop a consortium
that can implement all five activities under category A.
4. Conduct operational research studies in countries where the senior management personnel are
located, and where possible, involving trainees of the management training program and existing
FELTP programs, to evaluate the costs and effects of using available tools and approaches to
increasing vaccine coverage, including:
a. Improved transport and vaccine supply chain management
b. Improved situation analysis and micro-planning to reach hard-to-reach populations
c. Improved monitoring of vaccine coverage at district level, including the assessment of
new approaches such as serological surveys
d. Door-to-door canvassing to identify and refer children eligible for vaccination and for
other essential health interventions
e. Methods to increase community demand for vaccination and improve accountability of
health services to communities
f. Different combinations of outreach, mobile teams or supplementary immunization
activities, according to geographic and other characteristics.
g. Evaluation of the impact of PIRIs on coverage
Such studies should be co-ordinated with WHO IVB and regional offices to ensure maximum
awareness and use of results for action.
5. Ensure that newly trained nurses and doctors have skills in management of immunization and other
programs. Develop or adapt existing modules on modem theory and practice of EPI, including
management of the vaccine supply chain and transport, for pre-service training of Medical Officers
and Nurses (this component can be linked with activity (2)). Liaise with professional associations
such as the proposed African Medical and Nursing School association, to ensure that this training
becomes a standard part of medical and nursing schools' basic curricula.
Possibility of an overall package of interventions run by a consortium of NGO-academia-WHO,
identified by a request for proposals (RFP).
Since all of the recommendations under (a) are best implemented by groups that combine the field
experience of NGOs (local and international), the technical expertise of academia, and the public
health leadership of WHO, to ensure maximum synergies between the recommendations they could all
be part of an RFP for the formation of a consortium for strengthening national immunization
programs. This could be the most efficient process for BMGF, instead of running multiple small
projects.
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B. Investing in future generations — improvement of education as an incentive for strong preventive
health programs and a means to transform their effectiveness
Low educational status of communities and especially of women is a major stumbling block for
effective health care. Firstly, studies have consistently shown lower uptake of proven effective
interventions including vaccination among families where the mother (and to a lesser but still
significant extent, the father) is illiterate. Second, school-based, or "child-to-child" programs offer
the potential for delivering a range of interventions to school-children and their siblings. Even in
remote areas, there is often a school available in areas where there is no health facility and schools
offer contact points for delivering health promotion. Third, new vaccines such as HPV and in future,
HIV vaccine will need to be delivered to school-age children and improving the quality of schooling
will encourage higher school attendance and facilitate school-based health delivery. Fourth, districts
where educational achievement is low have few candidates for professional or vocational training
schemes and do not attract good quality health care workers, as trained professionals prefer to live in
areas where their own children will have access to education. They are thus stuck in a vicious cycle
and do not benefit from advances in other parts of the country. Fifth, the quality of education is poor
in many low income countries so that, while having a school-leavers certificate offers access to further
training, it does not equate with having the ability to be innovative, self-learning, or problem-solving.
Efforts to assist countries to attain MDG 2 (universal primary school education) mostly focus on
increasing access to school. The quality of education, however, also needs great improvement.
Modern technology and communications options are expanding rapidly, offering an opportunity to
transform the learning experience even in difficult environments. BMGF has invested over $4 billion
in schools and scholarships in the USA, from early learning (preschool) to college preparation, and
shown that effective teaching is the most important school-based factor in student achievement. The
experience from the USA should be translated into improving learning in poor countries.
We propose that BMGF conduct a demonstration project in at least one country, with simultaneous
investment in preventive health care (driven by investment in strengthening RI and bringing along
other preventive interventions) and in school education (initially primary school then extending to
secondary education), with a predicted lifespan of at least one generation. This length of investment
may seem long but to put it in perspective, it is the length of time that Rotary and others have been
supporting polio eradication. A program to develop innovative teaching techniques for rural areas
should be supported, with training of current teachers and use of distance-based techniques, and
adapted over time as technology advances. Health promotion messages would be an important part of
the curriculum. Tools, techniques and lessons learned from the project would be disseminated over its
course.
Beginning investment today to transform the learning experience of school-entry children means that
within ten years, a generation of literate school-children would enter their reproductive years able to
access and understand information, and by then strengthening secondary education, some of these
children will become the next generation of teachers. Within 20 years, the impact of high literacy and
education on sustaining immunization coverage in the next generation can be measured. Additional
aspects could be addressed and evaluated, such as giving incentives to mothers when their children
complete the immunization series, for example paying the costs of school attendance through primary
school. Since the project would mainly be investing in improving methods and quality, it should be
self-sustaining as other sources of funds would be used for the "bricks and mortar" component and
staff would be paid by government (but incentivised by access to improved tools and technology and
mentoring by project staff).
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I he opportunity and obligation to strengthen national immunization programs
Felicity Cutts and Robin Biellik, Consultants to BMGF, December 2010
Background information
List of contents
I. Introduction
2. Coverage among GAVI-eligible countries in 2009 and recent coverage trends
3. Current approaches to the delivery of vaccination
4. Who are the under-served and hard-to-reach?
5. Summary of literature reviews on the effectiveness of interventions to raise coverage
6. Logistics and management
7. Monitoring and operational research
8. Conclusions
9. References
10. List of persons interviewed
II. Tables
Table 1. Recent coverage trends in GAVI-eligible countries, and resources for health
la. High (>80%) coverage >4 yrs
lb. Medium (60-80%) coverage in 2005 and/or 2009
lc. Increasing coverage
Id. Low (<60%) coverage
Table 2. Main countries with internally displaced populations and/or people in refugee-like
situations due to conflict, 2007-8
Table 3. Indicators to monitor immunization program performance
Table 3. Advantages and disadvantages of methods to measure vaccination coverage
12. Figures
Figure 1. Global immunization 1980-2009, DTP3 coverage
Figure 2 (a-i): Coverage trends in countries in the RED evaluation
Figure 3: Coverage trends in Bangladesh
Figure 4: Coverage trends in Sudan
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I. Introduction
Immunization is one of the most cost-effective interventions available to improve health. In GAVI-
eligible countries, traditional vaccines against tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and
measles have the potential to save 4.5 million lives worldwide each year (WHO, 2010a) at an average
cost of US$24 per fully vaccinated child (Wolfson et al 2008). This astounding potential will only be
realized, however, if vaccines reach the communities at greatest risk of dying from vaccine-
preventable infections.
Infant and child mortality rates are highest in sub-Saharan Africa, where only two countries (Eritrea
and Malawi) are on-track for Millenium Development Goal (MDG)4,' and 11 countries have made no
progress in reducing child mortality since 1990 (Bhutta et al 2010). They are also high in
impoverished communities of Asia and the Middle-East, where despite impressive overall progress,
child mortality remains unacceptably high among residents of hard-to-reach and under-served
communities. Studies have shown that certain groups are missed by all health interventions, so that
while the majority of a population may benefit from powerful health technologies, those in greatest
need receive none (Victora et al 2005). Although global immunization coverage is high (82% in 2009
according to WHO-UNICEF estimates of national immunization coverage (WUENIC) — Fig I),
coverage has stagnated at ≤80% levels or fallen in 21 GAVI-eligible countries between 2005-9, often
in the very areas with highest child mortality rates. Assumptions about the benefit of the introduction
of new and underutilized vaccines (e.g. Sinha et al 2007) are over-optimistic unless national
immunization programs are empowered to reach high-mortality communities.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2010, Bill and Melinda Gates announced their
unprecedented commitment to realizing the potential of vaccines with a $10 billion donation for a
"Decade of Vaccines". At the same time, they and others continue their commitment to the
achievement of polio eradication. The investment, and the skills being developed through the Global
Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), offer renewed opportunities to improve countries' capacity to
reduce mortality in communities at greatest need. To date, these potential opportunities have not been
seized.
New, more expensive vaccines such as pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) and rotavirus vaccine
(RV) are a means to prevent diseases which commonly kill children in impoverished communities
(Cutts et al 2005, Parashar et al 2009). In communities with access to high-quality curative care for
pneumonia and diarrhoea, however, mortality from these conditions may already be low (Klugman et
al 2003). It is essential for these vaccines to reach the hard-to-reach groups. GAVI Alliance supports
low income countries to introduce more expensive vaccines under the expectation that countries will
take responsibility for purchasing these vaccines when GAVI support ends in 2015. There is thus an
obligation to ensure that countries accelerate efforts to reach the most under-served communities in a
systematic and sustainable fashion.
The GPEI has recognized the importance of strong routine immunization programs. In settings where
the national OPV3 coverage rate is >80%, indigenous polioviruses are more rapidly interrupted, there
is a statistically lower risk of having a polio outbreak following a wild poliovirus importation, and
there appears to be a lower risk of both the emergence and spread of circulating vaccine-derived
On track defined as mortality rate in children younger than 5 years of less than 40 deaths per 1000
live births, or less than 39 deaths per 1000 live births plus average annual rate of reduction (AARR)
higher than 3-9%; insufficient defined as under-5 mortality rate greater than 29 deaths per 1000 live
births plus AARR between 0.9% and 4.0%; no progress defined as under-5 mortality rate greater than
29 deaths per 1000 live births plus AARR lower than 1.0%. Ethiopia, Mozambique, Niger come close
to an AARR of 3.9% but still have high mortality (104, 130, 167 per 1000 live births, respectively)
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polioviruses (cVDPVs) (WHO 2010b). In addition, it is anticipated that during the final stages of
global eradication, some countries will switch to using inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) alone or in
combination with OPV, to obviate some of the problems associated with OPV including low vaccine
effectiveness in certain settings and the risk of vaccine-associated polio. IPV will likely be delivered
through RI services, possibly as a combined hexavalent or heptavalent vaccine. Since IPV alone does
not provide indirect protection to contacts, very high coverage is needed to sustain population
immunity to polio. For that, strong national immunization programs must be built and sustained.
A national immunization program needs to develop appropriate policies, select appropriate strategies
to implement those policies, monitor and evaluate implementation, and modify policies and strategies
according to the findings. At global and regional levels, inter-agency coordination committees (ICCs)
and national immunization technical advisory groups (NITAGs) assist governments to formulate
policies, in part with support from BMGF. Having appropriate policy is a good first step but action is
also needed to ensure that those policies are disseminated, accepted, and followed.
Recognizing the importance of a strong immunization platform, the BMGF has embarked on a
strategic planning process to further define the role of the foundation in improving routine
immunization services. To assist in this effort, BMGF asked the authors to help analyze options for
foundation investment in this area. This work will complement the investments previously made in
this area, such as the Africa Routine Immunization System Essentials (ARISE) project which is
examining factors contributing to strong immunization programs in the African region and is being
conducted by John Snow, Inc. We reviewed data on trends in immunization coverage since 2000
among GAVI-eligible countries as reported by governments to the World Health Organization (WHO)
and the WUENIC estimates of coverage. We gathered information on current strategies and
approaches to organising routine immunization and risk factors for low vaccine coverage from the
published and grey literature, regional and country plans of action and progress reports, and
presentations by national EPI managers and regional and country staff of WHO, UNICEF, PATH and
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to international and regional WHO immunization
meetings. Interviews were conducted with immunization staff at WHO headquarters, with WHO
regional staff and country EPI managers in SEAR and EMR, and with CDC. Structured
questionnaires were used in these interviews, to determine past experience and current policies and
strategies being used to strengthen routine immunization in low income countries. This was
complemented by discussions on specific topics, e.g. transport for health, vaccine supply chain
management, with experts in these areas. To avoid duplication of effort with the ARISE project, only
two EPI managers in the African region were interviewed (Ghana and Kenya), and results of
stakeholder interviews conducted by the ARISE project were reviewed rather than re-interviewing the
same experts.
2. Coverage among GAVI-eligible countries in 2009 and recent coverage trends
Table 1 shows trends for DTP3 coverage among GAVI-eligible countries since 2000, according to
WUENIC estimates for 2009 (data downloaded 5 August 2010). DTP3 coverage (often taken as an
indicator of utilization of vaccination services) is compared to DTP1 coverage (an indicator of access
to health services) and the dropout between the two vaccines, expressed as a percentage of DTP1
coverage, is shown. Countries are arbitrarily classified into four groups: those with high (>80%) and
relatively stable coverage since 2005; those with medium coverage (60-80%) in 2005 and/or 2009;
those with a marked increase in coverage between 2005 and 2009 (some of which began the increase
prior to 2005); and those with ongoing low coverage.
Less than one-third of GAVI-eligible countries have had stable coverage levels for at least 4 years that
are close to or above the GIVS target of 90% for DTP3 and MCV1 (MCV1 data not tabulated). In
AMR, EUR and WPR, most countries have high coverage, exceptions being Haiti (low) in AMR;
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Azerbaijan (medium) in EUR, and Lao PDR and Papua New Guinea (low) and the small islands of
Kiribati and the Solomons (medium) in WPR. The birth cohorts in countries in AMR, EUR and WPR
that have not yet sustained high coverage are very small. There are several countries in AFR and
EMR with low or medium coverage, however, and of these Nigeria in AFR and Sudan in EMR have
the highest birth cohorts; Chad and Somalia while having much smaller total populations also have
large numbers (>200,000 each) of unvaccinated children. In SEAR, while most countries have high
coverage and only Timor-Leste has low coverage, among those with medium coverage are India and
Indonesia with very large birth cohorts, and therefore the highest numbers of unvaccinated and under-
vaccinated children are in SEAR.
Countries with higher DTP3 coverage tend to spend more on health, as shown by total health
expenditure (THE) per capita, though with some exceptions. For example in AFR, Burundi has very
low THE but high coverage, whereas Equatorial Guinea has very high THE but low coverage. THE in
other regions is generally much higher than in AFR although it is surprisingly low in Myanmar in
SEAR and in Pakistan (EMR) which have high coverage.
Several countries (Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia,
Madagascar, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger and the Sudan) have greatly increased coverage in the last 4-8
years despite low overall THE, including countries classified by GAVI as fragile and containing
substantial populations that are internally displaced due to conflict (Table 2). Some, but not all of
these countries have received substantial official development assistance for child health, including
GAVI Immunization Services Support (ISS) funds. Most of the 9 countries with low coverage for
DTP3 and low or medium coverage for DTP1 over the last 4 years or more are classified by GAVI as
"fragile" or "poorest" states. The exceptions are Papua New Guinea and Nigeria which are lower
middle income countries.
In most countries with medium (60-80%) DTP3 coverage in 2005 and/or 2009, DTP1 coverage is high
and the main problem is high dropout between these vaccines. This is also the case in some countries
with low or increasing coverage. This suggests that health service delivery factors may play a large
role in the failure of children to complete the vaccination series. Other major health service delivery
factors recognized as important include vaccine stock-outs (see section 6), to which for example a
decline in coverage in Kenya in 2008 was attributed
(http://www.who.int/immunization_monitoring/data/ken.pdf, accessed 6 August 2010).
Some countries continue to have large differences between government reports of coverage and
WUENIC estimates, and as shown in the table, this appears particularly so in countries with low or
medium coverage (e.g., 22-52 percentage points difference in the two sources in the 5 African
countries with low coverage). This is potentially a major problem because if governments are
unwilling to recognize that coverage is low, they are unlikely to design or fund interventions to
increase coverage. Data for India are not shown because the government official coverage data for
2009 are not yet available but in 2008, India reported DTP3 coverage 18 percentage points higher than
the WUENIC estimates.
Most of the countries which have markedly increased coverage in recent years show good
concordance between government reports and WUENIC best estimates (Table 1), though with
important caveats. The WUENIC process can only lead to improved estimates if alternative sources
of data to administrative reports are available for comparison, and/or if there have been audits of the
quality of the administrative data. In countries affected by conflict, often no national population-
based surveys are conducted and hence the WUENIC process has little way to verify data. For
example, in Afghanistan, the detailed country report
(http://www.who.int/immunization monitorinWdata/afg.pdf, accessed 6 Aug 2010) shows that no
survey data have been used since 1999, as the one survey conducted in 2006 excluded children
without vaccination cards and hence data were not considered valid. Therefore, the WUENIC
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estimates are based on the coverage reported by the government. Similarly, among those shown in the
table as increasing coverage, WUENIC have recommended that nationally representative, high-quality
surveys be conducted in Angola and Sudan due to uncertainties about the reported data and lack of
recent surveys in those countries.
3. Current approaches to the delivery of vaccination
Vaccination may be delivered at a variety of sites, using strategies that range from fixed sites to
outreach, to mobile teams, to campaigns (Box 1).
Box 1: contact points and delivery strategies for vaccination
Fixed sites: health facilities (HF), e.g. hospitals, health centers, health posts: usually vaccinate
at least one day a week; frequency depends on catchment population size
Outreach sites: visited regularly (weekly, monthly, or less) by health staff, usually from the
nearest fixed site who return the same day. Vaccination may be done at a health post, school,
community building, or community representatives' house.
Mobile teams: teams travel and stay at least one night in remote locations. May administer
vaccines at outreach-type sites and/or do door-to-door vaccination.
Campaigns: mass immunization activities e.g. polio national immunization days (NIDs);
supplementary immunization activities (SIAs) for measles, tetanus toxoid, yellow fever, etc.
Vaccination done during a short period of time via multiple teams that vaccinate at
community and/or household levels. Often with expanded age ranges for eligibility.
To strengthen routine immunization services, WHO recommends that countries use the Reaching
Every District (RED) approach2, a bottom-up approach to district-based planning of immunization and
other health services based on data, which was launched in the African region in 2002
(http://www.who.int/immunization delivery/systems policy/red/en/index.htmp).
Box 2: The RED approach to organizing vaccination and other health services
Initially developed for use in districts with low immunization coverage and subsequently
promoted for nationwide use.
Intended as a broad-based approach to planning and delivering routine immunization, with 5
main components:
•
Re-establishment of outreach services (now "reaching target populations" in AFRO)
•
Supportive supervision
• Enhancing community links with service delivery
•
Monitoring and use of data for action
•
Improved planning and management of resources, with community involvement
2 Microplanning for immunization service delivery using the Reaching Every District (RED) strategy. WHO/IVB/09.11
World Health Organization, Geneva 2009
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In 2007, WHO, UNICEF, CDC and IMMbasics reviewed progress toward improving immunization
services and coverage in 9 countries (Benin, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC),
Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Togo and Uganda) which had implemented RED for at
least 24 months (Box 3). The evaluation showed substantial progress in implementing RED, but an
uneven emphasis on its different components and in general, an over-emphasis on the extension of
outreach services without sufficient attention to strengthening the planning, management and
monitoring of services. In most of the 9 countries, coverage had increased, but cause and effect could
not be attributed (Figs 2a-2i). RED had been scaled up using multiple funding sources, including
GAVI discretionary funding in 8/9 countries evaluated, and there were concerns about sustainability if
Immunization Services Support (ISS) is discontinued. Following the evaluation, the revised AFRO
guide (WHO 2007) incorporates "best practices" and "lessons learned", and gives more emphasis to
planning, management and the use of monitoring data, and to reaching all target populations using a
mix of sites, not just outreach. In Sudan, RED implementation is considered a success story, with
capacity building for improved microplanning, monitoring and evaluation, and investment in the cold
chain and transport. Within northern Sudan, the degree of coverage increased correlated with the
score for the level of implementation of RED (Ryman et al in press).
Box 3: Main findings from RED evaluation (WHO 2007)
Outreach: had increased in most countries and was most strongly identified component (health workers often
get allowances), usually integrated with other health services. Problems:
- communities not involved in scheduling in 67% instances
- vaccination data often not disaggregated by outreach vs fixed sites
- transport difficulties caused cancellation in —25%
Planning: microplans common, but lacked details on:
- catchment area - maps missing, don't identify outreach sites & hard-to-reach populations
- plans lacked strategies for reaching the hard-to-reach
Vaccine management: Stockouts of DTP frequent at district and Health Facility (HF) levels
Stockouts meant parents turned away (50% HF) or session cancelled (25%)
Few staff had recent training and high staff turnover
Linking services with communities: had improved;
66% HFs reported regular meetings and 74% had trained community volunteers
Volunteers could be used more to identify/register/track pregnant women and newborns
Supportive supervision: in 65% district workplans (usually integrated), but many problems:
- many planned visits cancelled
- integrated checklists lacked details on immunization
- time for supervision insufficient with little observation of practices
- little documented feedback
- inadequate follow-up on recommendations
Monitoring for action: most districts displayed monitoring charts and had data review meetings, but:
- inadequate understanding of the meaning of the charts at HF level
- inaccurate denominator data in half HFs
- creation of new districts increased difficulties for catchment populations
- desk review found data quality problems
- defaulter tracing methods inadequate
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Increasingly, countries are also conducting Periodic Intensification of Routine Immunization (PIRI)
activities for advocacy and/or for vaccination. These often include other child health interventions
such as vitamin A distribution to children under age 5 years. Multiple terms have been used including
"child health days/weeks", but increasingly the term "immunization days/weeks" (or "vaccination
weeks") is used. PIRIs have been grouped into two broad types (WHO 2009):
•
Service Delivery Together with Information, Education, Communication (IEC) and Social
Marketing. Done where routine coverage low. Instigated jointly by e.g. nutrition (Child Health
Days for vitamin A), immunization, malaria programs to provide a few selected services or
commodities to an expanded population.
•
IEC/Social Mobilization with only selective service delivery to reach pockets of underserved
populations. E.g. Vaccination Week in the Americas and European Immunization Week —
generate and sustain high-level and community support, +/- provide specific vaccines such as
rubella and yellow fever SIAs.
UNICEF (2006) and WHO (2009) have conducted desk reviews of experience with PIRIs (Box 4).
Box 4: Main findings from reviews of PIRIs
UNICEF (2006) reviewed experience of Child Health Days in 6 African countries in 2006:
•
CHDs raised vitamin A coverage by between 15-90 percentage points
•
Deworming was popular among mothers
•
Effect on measles vaccine coverage varied and CHD effect lower in infants <1 yr
•
CHDs may miss same children as do RI services (e.g. rural, poorly educated)
•
Bednet coverage was lower
•
Very little IEC was done and community support varied widely
•
Duplication of effort — co-ordination between programs needs improving
•
Monitoring and quality improvement systems are needed
WHO and partners review of PIRIs (WHO 2009)
•
Need to be planned with >=6 months lead time
•
Budget underestimated especially for reaching hard-to-reach and stakeholder engagement
•
Immunization targets not defined in terms of contribution to coverage
•
Recording of doses administered major problem
•
Supplies and logistics management difficult especially when multiple commodities
•
Cascade training didn't work well — better methods needed, including easy-to-use job aids
•
Supervision needs improving
•
High visibility and support for PIRIs could be used more to encourage use of RI services
•
Could use PIRIs better to identify characteristics of underserved populations and design
service delivery strategies both for PIRIs and RI
From interviews we conducted with EPI managers in EMR, we found that RED and PIRIs are the
main strategies being promoted to increase coverage in the countries with the greatest numbers of
under-vaccinated children. Many areas within GAVI-eligible countries in EMR are reliant on
outreach, mobile teams and SIAs or PIRIs because access and security problems make it difficult to
establish fixed sites. GAVI ISS funds have been used extensively to fund outreach in EMR. In
Afghanistan, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been used extensively to deliver and fund
vaccination services. Yemen plans to use ISS funds to equip more health facilities. There are
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concerns that coverage is starting to decline as ISS funds end, leading to a heated debate regarding
sustainability.
Informants interviewed in EMR feel that PIRIs are especially valuable in countries with poor
infrastructure. Two rounds of maternal-child-health weeks and one immunization day have been
conducted in Pakistan and Sudan since January 2009; Afghanistan and Yemen will conduct their first
National Immunization Week in 2010. Reported disadvantages are their cost, disruption of other
services (e.g. cancellation of outreach in Pakistan during PIRIs) and suboptimal monitoring and
evaluation. An evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of PIRIs is planned in Somalia.
Vaccination weeks are considered successful in the Americas and the recent combined PAHO-EUR-
EMR vaccination week was very popular among regional WHO staff and the country EPI managers
interviewed (though there are no data on their effect on overall coverage). In low-resource settings,
however, the problems experienced with the campaigns conducted during the drive for Universal
Childhood Immunization in the 1980s (UNICEF 1996) are being faced. In crowded sites, it is often
difficult to screen individual children to provide the correct antigen and dose, and there may not be
access to the clinic registers since so many different outreach sites are vaccinating simultaneously.
Thus, the registers may not be updated appropriately making future tracking of vaccinations difficult.
The specific use of PIRI or RED strategies has been less evident in SEAR. Only Nepal holds an
annual Immunization Month, during which vaccination is offered daily at fixed sites rather than the
normal weekly sessions, and intensive community mobilization is conducted by teachers and female
community health workers. District-level microplanning using some or all of the RED approaches has
been used widely.
SEAR has 6 GAVI-eligible countries - Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal and Timor-
Leste; of these all but India and Indonesia have made significant progress in the past 15 years.
According to our interviews, high-coverage countries and states/provinces within countries have a
culture of obligation to and accountability for providing adequate health service delivery to fellow-
citizens, strong management with close monitoring and feedback, and good governance practices.
Career development is merit-based and initiative is rewarded. As a result, health workers are
committed and have increasingly adopted the culture of using coverage and surveillance data for
decision-making, undertaking frequent and high-quality monitoring and supervision, and
implementing the recommendations of evaluations. In Bangladesh, ISS funds have been used to
improve district management and provide incentives to community volunteers in low-coverage areas
for community mobilization and defaulter tracing, in addition to strengthening the cold chain.
Community or 'immunization volunteers' are 'posted' as time-limited strategies to fill vacant
government posts until the vacancy is filled. In 2009, they numbered roughly 1,500-2,000 in total and
their total annual cost was US$300,000-400,000. In urban areas, a variety of methods have been used
to reach the hard-to-reach in SEAR. Bangladesh has been particularly innovative in this respect,
working closely with local NGOs (Uddin et al 2009). UNICEF has piloted different approaches in
India. In both countries, community volunteers are used to track children and encourage mothers to
attend vaccination at NGO or public clinics.
Overall, we conclude that PIRIs and mobile teams may be most appropriate in areas of difficult
geographic access or those with low security. If conducted well, PIRIs can be used to increase
advocacy for immunization, as in the Americas. The effect of PIRIs on coverage, especially among
children who do not attend ongoing clinic-based vaccination, has not been adequately demonstrated,
however. These concerns, and some of the findings from the RED evaluation in AFR, suggest that
some countries have over-emphasized outreach and campaign-style activities, and not given enough
attention to improving management and increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of existing
services (see sections 5 and 6 below).
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4. Who are the under-served and hard-to-reach?
There are substantial published data and three recent reviews; on characteristics of children who do
not receive DTP I ("unvaccinated") and those who begin vaccination but do not complete the series
("under-vaccinated" children). There are a series of barriers at health service, family and community
levels to initiating (Box 5) and completing (Box 6) the vaccination series. One of the most consistent
findings is the association of low coverage of vaccination and other health interventions with
education, particularly female education. This increases the difficulty in attaining high coverage in
some GAVI-eligible countries. In EMR, for example, female adult literacy is only 12.6% in
Afghanistan (second lowest in the world after Niger); 39.6% in Pakistan (I6'h lowest) and 40.5% (17th
lowest) in Yemen. Geographic barriers (mountains, floods), migrant populations, and security
constraints are also common barriers in the GAVI-eligible countries of EMR and to a lesser but still
important extent in SEAR and many African countries.
Box 5: Characteristics of families whose children are unvaccinated
Have the poorest or poor socio-economic status (e.g. urban slums, rural areas)
Are poorly educated (especially the mother)
Do not use maternal-child health services (e.g. child born at home, mother no TT)
Live in conflict-affected areas or have recently migrated from these
Live in rural areas (not all countries), with increased distance from health facilities
Belong to an ethnic or religious minority (some countries)
Lack maternal decision-making power (some countries)
Lack time (e.g. mothers work outside the home in urban or rural areas)
Lack funds (e.g. formal or informal user fees discourage attendance)
Have large families (in some countries)
Belong to, or live among, communities which are anti-vaccination
Do not understand the importance of vaccination
Failure to complete the primary vaccination series is associated with many of the above factors plus
health systems barriers such as those in box 6.
Box 6: health service barriers to completing the immunization series
•
Missed opportunities to vaccinate children who attend contact points, due to:
stockouts
-
concern about vaccine wastage/number of injections
-
perceived (false) contra-indications
•
Cancellation or delays of planned vaccination sessions including irregular outreach
e.g. due to transport failure; cold-chain failure; stockouts; absence of staff; strikes etc
•
Negative rumors or publicity against vaccination (in general or specific vaccines)
•
Poor understanding by parents of the need to return or when to return
•
Bad experience at a previous health center or outreach attendance, e.g. informal or
formal user fees; discourteous treatment by health workers; fear of reprimand if
child's vaccination record lost or damaged; previous adverse reaction eg BCG adenitis
or post-vaccination abscesses; and long waiting times.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed the published literature from 1999.2009, including 209 articles
in the final review, and IMMUNIZATIONbasics reviewed the grey literature and summarized 130 documents written after
1980 in a report to WHO in 2009. The Swiss Tropical Institute (STI) in 2009 analyzed the association between family
characteristics and one of two outcomes: "access" (receipt of at least one vaccine versus no doses), and "utilization" (fully
immunized child versus received at least one dose but not fully immunized), from a total of 242 Demographic Health
Surveys (DHS) or Multiple Indicator Cluster surveys in 97 countries.
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The potential negative effect on vaccination coverage of real and suspected adverse events following
immunization (AEFIs) may be increasing, especially in the European and south-east Asian regions.
As immunization coverage increases and VPD incidence and mortality declines, perceived adverse
events grow in importance relative to the burden of disease. This may be exacerbated by negative
publicity from the media, proponents of alternative medicine and opportunistic politicians. Urban
elites in middle income countries from South Africa to Saudi Arabia are accessing anti-vaccination
websites and losing confidence in routine immunization. Rare cases of AEFIs are publicized before
full investigation, and the deterrent effect is difficult to overcome even when investigation reveals no
causal association with vaccination. Suspect AEFIs have led to suspension of vaccination in 3
separate recent incidents in India, one of which was accompanied by jailing of vaccination staff, and
in Bhutan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, in the last 5 years (Unpublished data from SEAR WHO regional
office). In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states in India, 20% and 17%, respectively, of mothers surveyed
whose infants had not received DTP3 reported fear of AEFIs (SEAR WHO unpublished data).
WHO has initiated efforts to analyze the capacity of Ministries of Health (MoH), in countries that
have not already done so, to respond effectively to this challenge. All reported AEFIs should be
investigated promptly, causality should be established by an independent team of experts, and rumors
spread by the media and others neutralized quickly to reinforce public confidence in immunization.
This initiative is essential and where possible should be accelerated. BMGF has recently funded a
project to raise public confidence in immunization programs by better understanding public
perceptions of vaccines. A vaccine rumor surveillance system will be established and a diagnostic tool
developed to determine the characteristics, scale and timing of vaccine rumors— i.e. the threshold —
when intervention is needed to protect public trust in vaccines and prevent possible vaccine refusals.
In addition to these specific causes of un- and under-vaccination, from interviews conducted for this
work we conclude that over-arching requirements for high coverage are strong political will, good
governance, strong leadership and management, and close monitoring of inputs, outputs and impact of
the program with feedback of results and action according to findings. For example, we were
informed that the health sector in low-coverage states/provinces of SEAR is characterized by weak
leadership, poor accountability and low staff motivation. Bureaucracy is allowed to obstruct progress
and in some cases senior staff is unwilling or unable to resolve obstacles to improve performance.
Career development is limited and not necessarily merit-based. There is no shortage of qualified staff,
but huge numbers of health worker posts remain vacant and turnover in filled posts is high.
Encouragingly, one interviewee informed us that this situation is improving in at least one of the
northern Indian states. In Indonesia, firm commitment to resolving the stagnation in RI coverage has
been announced by the Minister of Health (presentation to the SEAR EPI managers meeting 2010),
with a renewed emphasis on improved outreach services, increasing community involvement,
reducing dropouts especially in densely populated areas, improving monitoring, data analysis and
feedback, conducting advocacy via a "road show" in low coverage and highly populated provinces,
giving incentives (bednets) to mothers whose children are fully vaccinated, and giving rewards for the
best performance among health providers, with the goal of achieving universal coverage by 2014.
This was coupled with a Presidential decree requiring inter-sectoral collaboration and provincial
accountability for performance.
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5. Summary of literature reviews on the effectiveness of interventions to raise coverage
Missed opportunities should be reduced.
In the 1980s, a standard EPI protocol was used widely and studies found that missed opportunities to
immunize were universal. A review of 69 studies in 1993 found that if opportunities to immunize had
been taken in the specific populations and health services studied, immunization coverage would have
increased by a median of 32 percentage points (Hutchins et al 1993). Population-based studies
suggested an increase by a median of 22% (range, 3-77%), while health-service-based studies
indicated an increase by a median of 44% (range, 0-80%) among clinic attendees. Missed
opportunities to vaccinate women with tetanus toxoid were even more common. Nine intervention
studies evaluated the effectiveness of interventions to reduce missed opportunities, and all showed a
decline in missed opportunities, although in most studies multiple interventions were implemented at
the same time. There has been less focus on reducing missed opportunities in the last decade, as more
attention has been placed on reducing wastage rates of newer, more expensive vaccines. It is possible
that missed opportunities are more common now that most countries allocate only one or two days a
week for vaccination at fixed centers. Mothers of children who attend on other days and are asked to
return on the vaccination day may not bring those children back. Evaluation of the cost-effectiveness
of interventions to use all opportunities to vaccinate is needed.
Use of community health workers and channeling are cost-effective
In the last decade, four systematic reviews of studies to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions
have been published; two of these also included an assessment of costs (Batt et al 2005, Pegurri et al
2005; Ryman et al 2008; Shea et al 2009). Published studies in the 1980s and early 1990s (Batt et al
2005, Pegurri et al 2005), when mean baseline coverage among fully-vaccinated children (FVC) was
34% (range, 3-65%), showed that the interventions with the highest impact were use of community
health workers and channeling (also called door-to-door canvassing by community volunteers and/or
health workers, to identify and refer unvaccinated and under-vaccinated women and children to the
nearest fixed or outreach site). The strategies with the lowest average incremental cost per FVC were
peer training and channeling. Cost-effectiveness was higher when community health workers were
used than when more highly trained health workers were used for channeling. The use of community
health workers has more recently been highlighted in a review by Haines et al (2007) showing their
role in a range of preventive and curative interventions and the potential to integrate vaccination with
other interventions.
Costs and effectiveness of outreach, mobile teams and campaigns vary but outreach may be most
expensive
Importantly, given the current emphasis on RED, Pegurri et al (2005) found that the average
incremental costs of outreach teams were higher than those of campaigns and both were higher than
those of fixed centers. Average costs per dose of vaccine delivered and per FVC were higher for
campaigns than for routine services in three countries, but campaign costs varied 30-fold between
countries.
Use of mass media, community-based Information, Education and Communication, giving incentives,
and training health workers to improve communications may be effective
Shea et al (2009) extended literature reviews to 2008, with a focus on interventions assessing demand
for vaccination. A total of 8 papers met their criteria for inclusion, of which two were published after
the previous systematic reviews. A study in Bangladesh (Hutchinson 2006) evaluated the effects of a
communication program that included national television drama series, TV and radio spots, newspaper
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and local publicity. Children were more likely to receive DTP3 if their mothers recalled seeing
promotional material (64% versus 48%), although it was difficult to adjust for confounding. In
Pakistan, Andersson et al (2009) showed increases in DTP3 coverage in one village after instituting
community discussions about immunization.
Not included in Shea's review are other recent papers on increasing demand in Karachi city, Pakistan.
Home-based education about the importance of vaccination and of retaining the immunization card
and giving "logistical" ("where and when" of vaccination) information by Village Health Workers
increased coverage in Karachi (72% on-time DTP3 in the intervention and 52% in the control group)
(Owais et al, submitted); and in another study, giving food/medicine coupons as incentives doubled
DTP3 coverage by age 18 weeks, though completion was still very low (47%) (Chandir et al 20104).
A health-center based study found that redesign of vaccination card (to highlight the return date) and
center-based education about completing the schedule both led to increased DTP3 coverage, with the
combined intervention leading to 74% on-time vaccination compared to 55% in the standard care
group (Usman et al 2009). The degree to which results from those studies has fed into national
decision-making on immunization strategies is unclear.
There are few recent high quality data that compare the effectiveness and cost of four approaches:
outreach, increasing demand, changing practices at health centers, or using innovative management.
Ryman et al (2008) searched the published and grey literature from 1975 through 2004. Only 25
papers met their criteria for inclusion in the review; all were published. Only 9 papers provided data
on the increase in FVC following the intervention (in 6 of which, working with communities was
included) and all 9 showed marked increases. Costs were not reported. Difficulties in drawing or
generalizing conclusions about relative strengths of different interventions were highlighted. The
paucity of recent data on costs and effectiveness is disappointing given that much work was done on
costing EPI in the 1980s, including studies by the REACH program of John Snow Inc. and other
groups, and the guidelines that WHO has developed and disseminated for costing immunization
programs.
Better data are needed to make conclusions on the most cost-effective strategies in different settings
All authors of the above reviews commented that the quality of studies was not optimal and that
several factors such as setting (urban/peri-urban/rural), populations targeted, infrastructure and
incentives are all important to consider. Improved measurement of costs and effects of interventions
and of vaccination approaches such as PIRIs, is required.
6. Logistics and management
The current vaccine "controlled temperature chain" (widely known as the "cold chain", but
encompassing vaccines that have good heat-stability and are susceptible to freezing), used in most low
and middle income countries, is based on an uninterrupted series of storage and distribution activities,
which allow the vaccine to retain specific temperatures throughout (Fig 1).
In the early years of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), huge efforts were put into
establishing national cold chains for vaccine storage, training and supporting cold chain technicians to
maintain equipment, and training health workers at all levels regarding proper storage and handling of
vaccines and diluents. By 1990, when Universal Childhood Immunization was declared to have been
Food-medicine coupon worth $2 given at each DTP visit. Coupon could be exchanged at one of 6 stores. Not a
randomized controlled trial — intervention cohort was first then the control cohort was enrolled after a 6-week gap.
Follow-up ended early due to lack of funding.
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achieved, there was a belief that the basic infrastructure for the EPI was in place and immunization
program priorities shifted to polio eradication and measles and neonatal tetanus elimination, with great
investment in epidemiological surveillance.
Fig 1. Schematic of the vaccine supply chain (source: Optimize strategy document)
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The hands-on approach to capacity-building in logistics changed to a global-level networking
approach to interchange of experience and technological updates, through the Technical Network for
Logistics in Health, or TechNet, (the name was changed in 2001 to TechNet21), the Safe Injection
Global Network (SIGN), the Technical Logistics Advisory Committee to WHO established in 2008
and superseded in 2010 by the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee (IPAC), with expanded
terms of reference encompassing innovation and strategy, field operations, and tools and technologies.
Recommendations from IPAC meetings which imply changes in WHO policy are presented to WHO's
Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) that advises WHO on immunizations norms and
policies. This global networking has been helpful but does not overcome logistical and management
constraints at country-level (Box 7).
Since the establishment of GAVI and relatively rapid scale-up of new vaccines with much larger
volume requirements per fully-vaccinated child, evaluations of supply chain have shown major
weaknesses with logistics infrastructure, management and planned preventive maintenance (PPM) for
cold chain and transport in many countries. For example, in 2008, landscape analysessos reviewed data
from assessments of vaccine storage and management at country level using the EVSM tool7, which
5 Optimize. Supply Chain and Logistics for Immunization. Main findings from the Landscape Analyses. Draft 24 June
2008. Also see Optimize. Analysis of EVSM Indicators, February 2008 and Analysis of VMAT Indicators. PATH,
Feeney-Voltaire, October 2008.
6 Optimize. Supply Chain and Logistics for Health. Main findings from the Landscape Analyses. Draft, 25 June 2008.
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reviews the national level storage and management, and the Vaccine Management Assessment
(VMA)8 tool, which reviews all levels from national to health facility. EVSM assessments were
mainly conducted from 2003-5, in AFR, EMR and SEAR, while VMAs were mainly done in AFR,
with 60% of these being done after 2005. These assessments found lowest scores on management-
related issues including:
•
vaccine store management and storage capacity at national and sub-national levels
•
vaccine distribution
•
stock control (stock-outs were frequent), despite widespread introduction of computerized
systems
•
equipment maintenance including Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM)
•
avoidance of freezing freeze-sensitive vaccines
•
VMAs showed an overall poor standard of performance, which was worse at sub-national than
national level, e.g. at the service-point level only 7 out of 31 (23%) applicable indicators were
satisfactorily met.
To address some of these problems, in November 2007, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded
a five-year PATH -WHO joint effort to shape the future of immunization and health delivery systems
which led to the creation of "Optimize - Immunization Systems and Technologies for Tomorrow."
Optimize aims to create a vaccine supply chain that is flexible and robust enough to handle an
increasingly large and costly portfolio of vaccines and ultimately, create synergies with the delivery of
other health commodities. Optimize focuses on three strategic objectives and areas of work:
•
innovation (supporting and guiding ongoing research and development activities, and creating
an environment conducive to further innovation);
•
demonstration (empirical research to show effectiveness of new technologies and systems);
•
facilitation of a coalition of partners to ensure long-term, sustained efforts to extend improved
logistics systems globally.
While Optimize looks for innovative solutions for the future, the current reality is that combined with
transport deficiencies, vaccine stock-outs are one of the main constraints to increasing routine
vaccination coverage in low-income countries.
Lack of transport, or inefficient use of existing transport, for distribution of vaccines bundled with
injection supplies (syringes, disposal boxes, etc.), conduct of outreach, supervision or cold chain
repair, is a major constraint on health service delivery. Transport is often unavailable due to poor
maintenance or lack of fuel, and when it is functional there are competing demands on its use. Out-
sourcing transport management and maintenance can be more efficient than using government
workshops, but still requires strong co-ordination by MoH. Projects to create efficient and sustainable
transport planning, utilization, maintenance and replacement by NGOs such as Riders for Health,
Transaid and Village Reach have demonstrated short-term success in specific settings, but cover a
minority of countries and districts.
In the last 10-20 years, decentralization of health services has meant that in many countries, the MoH
immunization unit has reduced in size and received less attention, and many developing countries
have none or only one MoH logistician linked to the NIP, often at a low-grade and under-valued
clerical level. In the same way that governments have neglected to create and fill posts for
logisticians, they lack posts for transport managers, and lack training and career structures.
7 WHO-UNICEF Effective Vaccine Store Management initiative: modules 1-4. WHO/IVB/04.16-20. Available at
http://wholibdoc.who.int/ho/2005/WHO IVB 04.16-20.pdf
8 World Health Organization (WHO) Access to Technologies Team. Vaccine Management Assessment.
WHO/IVB/05.02. Geneva: WHO; 2005. Available at:
http://wholibdoc.who.int/hq/2005/WHO IVB 05.02 eng.pdf
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For transport, demonstration projects have shown the potential savings to be made by conducting a
situation analysis and having appropriate policies as to the most efficient mix of transport for different
activities, conducting PPM, and monitoring closely the use of the transport fleet. For example, studies
in 2001 showed that 4-wheel drive vehicles were only used for service delivery from 5% to 31%
(median 19%) of the time in 3 African countries, compared to 33-58% (median 51%) for motorcycles,
yet donors continue to provide 4-wheel drive vehicles without adequate accountability or monitoring
of their use. Remarkably little is invested by donors or governments in PPM, despite its demonstrated
efficiency and ability to prolong the fleet's useful working life and the finding that transport is often
the third highest expenditure (after salaries and drugs) within the health budget (Transaid personal
communication). Similarly, there has been inadequate investment in capacity-building for operational
management of transport, despite evaluations showing that good operational management improved
utilization, reduced costs, and increased the proportion of kilometers traveled for service delivery
(Nancollas 2001).
Box 7: Planning vaccination services and managing resources needs improving
•
Emphasizing low vaccine wastage (e.g. only vaccinating one day a week; not opening a
multi-dose vial for few children) may mean more missed opportunities
• Poor stock control and lack of transport for vaccine distribution mean stock-outs are common
•
Mothers turned away because of stock-outs, attendance on days not designated for
vaccination, outreach team not arriving on time, health workers' concern about vaccine
wastage or false contra-indications, may be discouraged from returning
• Children who are vaccinated are not always protected, as inadvertent freezing of freeze-
sensitive vaccines is now more common than damage by excessive heat; transport of vaccine
to outreach needs to maintain appropriate temperatures for heat-sensitive and freezing-
sensitive vaccines
•
Lack of planned preventive maintenance greatly reduces the working life of transport and
cold chain equipment
• Projects have demonstrated increased utilization rates of transport by improving transport
policies (e.g. using most cost-effective means of transport) and maintenance
•
Effective Vaccine Store management (EVSM) evaluations since 2000 constantly identify the
need for more, higher-grade and better-trained logisticians to plan and implement efficient
vaccine supply chain management, especially now that expensive new vaccines are being
introduced.
•
Refresher training must be updated and repeated due to frequent staff turnover.
• Governments need to create posts for logistics and transport managers
•
The best mix of strategies (e.g. daily vaccination at fixed sites; reducing missed opportunities;
using most cost-effective transport and human resources) needs to be evaluated in different
settings
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7. Monitoring and operational research: what gets measured, gets done
The ultimate indicators of program success are reduced disease incidence and mortality. Disease
surveillance has a well-demonstrated key role in disease elimination/eradication programs and
detection and response to outbreaks. Surveillance is also one potential method to generate data on
burden of diseases and monitor impact of vaccination against those diseases, especially when it is
combined with epidemiological (e.g. case-control studies; modelling) and laboratory (e.g. molecular
epidemiology studies) investigations. Investment in surveillance is therefore a critical component of
vaccination programs.
In addition to timely surveillance, it is also vital to monitoring indicators of program performance
(Table 3), to detect potential service delivery problems and identify timely solutions. Coverage is
monitored through a mix of methods (Table 4). Indicators of program quality, safety and efficiency
are monitored through supervision, and through data provided annually through the WHO/UNICEF
Joint Reporting Form (JRF)
(http://www.who.int/immunization_monitoring/routine/joint_reporting/en/index.html). Provision of
regular feedback on these indicators, and teaching staff how to use data at the local level, are powerful
ways to motivate health workers to improve.
Because of the ubiquity and relative simplicity of routine reports on vaccinations administered, WHO-
UNICEF and GAVI have invested substantial effort into improving the quality of coverage estimated
on the basis of these reports, through two main processes summarized below.
i. WHO-UNICEF estimates of national immunization coverage (WUENIC)
Since June 2000, WHO and UNICEF have done annual reviews of routine immunization coverage
worldwide.9 Reports of routine administrative coverage by national authorities to WHO and UNICEF
(since 1998, collected using the JRF) and any available national coverage survey data are reviewed
and survey data ranked in terms of perceived quality Draft estimates are determined and sent to
national authorities, modified in light of comments received and published as the "WHO-UNICEF
estimates" of immunization coverage, in August of the year following the end of the reporting period
(Burton et al 2009). Country-specific estimates are updated annually. If a new survey becomes
available that contains information for previous years, retrospective adjustment of coverage estimates
is made for relevant years. This process has helped improve the quality of administrative reports
from many countries. However, there are several constraints, including:
•
Not all surveys are of good quality or give precise estimates. Sampling frames such as
censuses are often outdated. The proportion of children for whom vaccination records are
available varies widely and for children without cards, verbal histories of vaccination are less
reliable. Even when quality of survey conduct is high, small sample sizes may mean that the
confidence intervals around the coverage estimate are wide.
•
Delays (often of several years) before obtaining results from surveys such as the DHS so that
major retrospective changes in WUENIC estimates take place. For example, estimates in
Uganda on the WHO website in 2007 for the years 2002-6 were approximately 20 percentage
points higher than the estimates in 2008 which had been adjusted for newly available results of
a DHS. Thus for several years, Ugandan authorities would have been complacent in believing
that DTP3 coverage was around 90% rather than the 60-68% WUENIC estimates after
adjusting for survey results.
•
When survey data are not available, as in many countries affected by conflict, the only source
of data is administrative reports. Thus, for example, WUENIC estimates are equal to
9 http//:www.who.intivaccines-documents/globalsummary/globalsummary.pdf
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government reports for 2008 in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Timor Leste, but no national
coverage survey has been conducted for several years in these countries.
ii. Data quality audits
Audits of administrative coverage data have frequently found problems (Onta 1998; Weeks 2000). To
receive renewal of GAVI ISS funding, an adequate score on a standard data quality assessment (DQA)
must have been obtained, involving a repeat DQA after action to improve reporting should have been
taken (Ronveaux 2005; Woodard 2007, Bosch-Capblanch 2009). The DQA compares data collected
from health unit (HU) records with reports at district and national levels and the verification factor
(VF) expresses the proportion of immunizations reported at national level that can be tracked down to
the HU. The DQA also assigns a quality score (QS) between I and 5 for the quality of the information
system at national, district and HU levels. Data from DQAs conducted between 2002-5, in 41
countries (30 African, 10 Asian and one Caribbean) showed that 46% of countries obtained a VF
below 80% (needed for continued GAVI support), and only 9 of the 41 countries had consistently high
VF and QS scores (Bosch-Capblanch 2009). The highest scoring countries were Tanzania, Burkina
Faso, Guinea (second DQA) and Kenya (second DQA). In Nigeria it was not possible to estimate the
VF due to lack of data. Computers were used to manage data in all national immunization program
offices and in 41% of district offices. The most frequent weaknesses were:
•
Inconsistent denominators between different levels of the system
•
Poor availability of guidelines (eg for late reporting)
•
Incorrect estimations of vaccine wastage
•
Lack of feedback on vaccine performance
•
Lack of calculation of DTP3 dropout rates
Reviews of data quality can be useful training tools and countries are increasingly encouraged to
monitor quality themselves, as ongoing efforts and not only audits conducted for GAVI. They can
also show the potential to increase coverage by reducing missed opportunities (Weeks et al 2000).
Although the WHO-UNICEF process and DQAs have gone some way towards improving routine
data, much remains to be done (Lu et al 2006), and continued focus on data quality and use of data is
essential.
Periodic reviews, anti operational research studies to assess program performance
National Programme Reviews
These aim to assess all components of a National Immunization Program (NIP). On-site observation
and interviews are performed at national, regional, district, health center and community levels in
selected areas, using a series of checklists produced by WHO (http://www.who.intivaccines-
documents/DoxGen/H5-CAT.htm). Following data analysis, program redesign needs are discussed and
a list of major issues prepared. For each issue, achievements and problems are listed and an action plan
formulated. In the 1980s, WHO HQ organized international program reviews, using a combined
international and national team, regularly in all countries. These reviews helped shape the development
of NIPs. Regional offices are now responsible for their organization and follow-up and comprehensive
program reviews appear to be less common. Separate reviews focusing on one or two components of
the immunization program have been done (e.g. EVSM and VMA — see section 6). Introduction of new
vaccines offers other opportunities to review the vaccination program through post-vaccine-introduction
evaluations, which may be used as mini-NIP reviews.
Operational research studies to investigate causes of low vaccine coverage
As discussed in section 4, bathers to vaccination are common causes of low vaccine coverage. They
can readily be identified by operational research conducted locally.
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Health facility-based surveys (health—facility assessments) include a mixture of observation of
practices, interviews with providers, and exit interviews with mothers. They are useful to evaluate
timeliness of vaccination, dropout rates, and missed opportunities and to assess provider knowledge
and practices, and information and education activities (Cutts et al 1990, Gindler et al 1993). These
inexpensive studies can easily be coupled with home visits to adjacent neighborhoods to investigate
reasons for under-vaccination in households with good access to health services (Gindler et al 1993,
Malison et al 1987). Together with rapid feedback of results, monitoring these indicators usually
leads to increases in coverage.
Operational research studies done at the local level can be inexpensive and provide useful information
for program managers. They are part of training programs such as the two-year Field Epidemiology
Training Program (FEW) (http://www.cdc.gov/coghidescciffetp.htm) and the one-year EPIVAC
training program in Francophone west Africa (http://www.epivac.org) . For example, FETP trainees
undertook formative research followed by demonstration projects of interventions ranging from
improving relationships between health staff and communities in Kenya, lobbying district authorities
to provide regular fuel for outreach in Zimbabwe, and implementing a tickler (reminder/recall system)
with a health education component in Uganda (AFENET unpublished report 2007). EPIVAC
operational research projects are part of the requirement for a Masters degree. Examples of recent
studies are financing mechanisms for immunization, vaccine storage conditions, waste management,
vaccine wastage, and causes of dropout (A. Aplogan, EPIVAC unpublished reports).
The importance of monitoring and feedback of information to improved performance
The smallpox eradication program identified three factors critical to success: establishment of
measurable objectives, quality control of program performance, and research to solve operational
problems (Henderson et al 1987). Marked increases in coverage have been demonstrated in
developing and industrialized countries after implementation of systems to monitor performance and
provide regular feedback to providers (Cutts et al 1990a,b; Lebaron et al 1997, 1999, Weeks et al
2000). Monitoring of district, or clinic-level performance, can also provide data used for
performance-based funding. In England, after the coverage monitoring system was running well,
general practices were rewarded for achieving coverage targets and coverage increased further (Noah
1987). In Cambodia, success in coverage improvement is attributed to (1) development of a needs-
based micro-plan, (2) application of performance-based contracting between levels of management,
(3) investment in social mobilization, (4) securing finance for health outreach programs and (5)
strengthened monitoring systems (Soeung et al 2006). Since performance-based funding (Canavan et
al 2008) is currently being promoted by the organizations including Norad and the World Bank
(http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTISPMA/Resources/383704-
1 1 84250322738/Cluster_P4PinHealth.pdf),
(http://www.norad.no/entAbout+Norad/News+archive/FourFcountries+suggested-Fin+the+first-Fround
+of+the+Results-Based+Financing+Initiative.129750.cms), it is important that the data used to assess
district and health facility performance is accurate and timely.
Programmatically, the planned renewed focus of the GPEI's work in support of immunization services
strengthening includes assistance in program monitoring. In countries where GPEI has polio
surveillance officers (mainly polio-endemic countries and those considered at risk of re-importations),
GPEI staff will assist with the collection, collation and analysis of basic data on essential elements of
immunization services, including the human resources available for RI (e.g. the percentage of
vaccinator positions filled), the completeness of vaccination sessions (e.g. the percentage of planned
sessions conducted), the status of vaccine stocks and cold chain capacity for RI, and the vaccination
coverage achieved. This increased capacity for data collection on inputs and activities needs,
however, to be matched by improved capacity to use data for effective action at all levels.
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8. Conclusions
Vaccines have the potential to contribute greatly to the attainment of MDG4. This potential will only
be realized, however, if health systems have the capacity to reach all populations, including the hard-
to-reach, if governments are committed to child health and there is strong community support.
Investment in policy-setting and in provision of technology should be accompanied by investment in
the effective and coordinated management of resources and programs.
To reach all populations, there must be sufficient contact points (via fixed sites, outreach or mobile
teams) between well-trained, motivated health workers and families. Families must be informed and
motivated to attend immunization services and complete the immunization series, with minimum
economic, social, bureaucratic or political obstacles. Transport must be available for health workers
and, in certain settings, for families to reach these contact points. The transport, storage and supply of
vaccines and related equipment must be safe and reliable. The means and methods for effective
communications between different levels of the health system and between healthcare providers and
families need to be in place and used. Systems to monitor inputs (resources), outputs (numbers of
vaccinations), safety (adverse events surveillance) and impact (disease surveillance) must be in place
and used effectively. To improve efficiency, the selection of contact point, mode of transport, and
number and skills of personnel, should be based on accurate determination of the characteristics and
location of the population and of infrastructure.
Health-service interventions to increase coverage include improving management (of the vaccine
supply chain, transport, human and financial resources); training and motivating health workers to
follow best practices including using all opportunities to vaccinate children who attend health
services, to communicate better about the importance of vaccination, the "where" and "when" of
vaccination visits, and strengthening systems to remind mothers to return and to follow-up those who
don't attend. Once known health service problems are corrected, potential barriers at family or
community levels should be addressed, with emphasis on communities where coverage is lowest.
Health workers and community volunteers should be trained to search for unvaccinated women and
children, offer them vaccination and actively follow-up their families to ensure timely vaccination of
their children. Factors such as maternal tetanus toxoid vaccination status, low educational level,
recent migration, and large family size can be used to identify families needing extra support.
Characteristics of successful health services have been identified by Rohde et al (2008), who
compared progress in reduction of child mortality since 1978 with gross domestic product (GDP) and
other characteristics. Countries that had under-performed included those affected by conflict; those
with governance challenges and marked social inequity, and those with very high HIV-AIDS
prevalence. Thirty countries were identified with the highest average yearly reduction of child
mortality in the previous 30 years, of which only two (Eritrea and Malawi) were in sub-Saharan
Africa. Of these 30 countries, 14 also had high coverage of skilled attendance at birth, taken as an
indicator of comprehensive primary health care. Almost all of these 14 countries had good
governance and progress in non-health sectors. The remaining 16, however, included those that are
making progress despite very low income per person (e.g. Nepal and Bangladesh), political instability,
and/or high HIV/AIDS prevalence (e.g. Malawi). Lessons learned from all these countries include the
need for a nationally agreed package of prioritized and phased primary health care that all
stakeholders are committed to implementing, attention to district health management systems, and
consistent investment in primary health-care extension workers linked to the health system. Boxes 8
and 9 summarize characteristics of the successful immunization program in Bangladesh, and the
improving program of Sudan.
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1"7
Box 8: Overall success in a large, poor country — lessons from Bangladesh (Fig 3)
3.4 million live births (2009)
Infant mortality rate (2008): 43/1000 live births - fell from —150/1000 in 1980 (source:
http://www.childmortality.org)
Child (<5) mortality rate (2008): 54/1000 live births (source: http://www.childmortality.org)
72% population rural (2010)
GDP/capita (2010): US$1580 (PPP adjusted); GNI/capita (2010): US$ 590 (source: World Bank)
Human Development Indicator ranks higher than GDP/capita
Adult literacy (2006) 48% women; 58% men
Govt expenditure on health=7.4% total expenditure (2006)
Steady increase in coverage from 1987. Coverage >80% since 2000; WUENIC estimates higher than
reported coverage; ≥80% districts have >80% DTP3 coverage in 2009
•
Political commitment
o Government funded >60% of vaccine costs before pentavalent introduced in 2009; funds
40% of total routine immunization costs 2009
•
Strong management at central and district level.
o Cold chain strengthened with GAVI ISS funds
o Cold chain and logistics are regularly reviewed for uninterrupted EPI sessions
o ISS funds used to strengthen district management, including cash support at District,
City Corporation, Upazila and Municipality level in the name of "Envelop budget"
which includes fund for supervision, support for volunteer in vacant positions, reward
for field workers at different levels and additional vaccine transportation cost for hard-
to-reach areas
o Extra support given to poor-performing districts
o Extensive use of motorcycles and bicycles for vaccine transport & supervision
•
Partnership with local NGOs and other health service providers
o NGO support especially in in difficult areas (e.g. in Bangladesh:boat people, hill tribes.
urban slums
•
Use of user-friendly supervision check-list
•
Planning process (based on RED microplanning guidelines):
—
All levels of field workers & stakeholders involved
—
Ward or district level analysis
—
Prioritize interventions based on local problems
Innovative use of human resources:
—
Use of GAVI ISS to fund 32 district immunization medical officers
—
Provision of volunteers against vacant posts
—
Extra porters for vaccine transportation for hard to reach areas
High community demand for vaccination
—
History of strong community-based projects in hard-to-reach urban and rural areas
Close monitoring and feedback and supervision.
—
Monthly analysis of data and quarterly review of micro-plan
—
Improving Data Quality and Management
•
Collaboration with other programs — Nutrition, Vitamin A, Birth Registration etc.
•
Low dropout rates:
—
Community-based birth registry with high coverage
—
Tracking of every child — using new tally sheet with name and details
-
Involve community volunteers for tracking
—
Now assessing use of computerized data of vaccination and follow-up for every child
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Box 9: Encouraging progress in a midsize, poor country — lessons from Sudan (Fig 4)
1.3 million live births (2009); 55% population rural (2010)
Infant mortality rate (2008): 70/1,000 live births (-85/1000 in 1980 and —105/1000 in 1970)
Child (<5) mortality rate (2008): 109/1,000 live births (http://www.childmortality.org)
GDP/capita (2010): US$2,000 (PPP adjusted); GNUcapita (2010): US$1,230 (source: World Bank)
Human Development Indicator rank lower than GDP/capita rank
Adult literacy (2006): 52% women; 71% men
Government expenditure on health: 6.9% total expenditure (2006)
North Sudan: DTP3 coverage >80% since 2007; WUENIC estimates lower than reported coverage;
>80% districts have >80% DTP3 coverage in 2009.
South Sudan: reported DTP3 coverage 50% in 2009; 11% districts had >80% DTP3 coverage in 2009.
•
Political commitment
•
Government funded 30% of total routine immunization costs in 2008; funded <10% of
traditional vaccine costs in 2009.
•
GAVI support:
•
US$24 million for ISS, INS and HSS up to 2008,
•
INS support 2002-04 only,
•
HepB vaccine introduced in 2005,
•
Pentavalent vaccine introduced in 2008.
•
Strong management at central and district level:
•
Strong national level team which recognizes the importance of monitoring and evaluation
•
Supportive supervision funded with GAVI funds.
• Extensive deployment of outreach and mobile teams, with staff incentives and fuel funded with
GAVI funds; an estimated 40% and 20% of all routine vaccination delivered by outreach teams
and mobile teams, respectively.
•
Widespread implementation of RED strategy with strong emphasis on identifying poorly
performing districts, conducting microplanning, building local capacity, and implementing
monitoring and evaluation,
•
2007 evaluation concluded that RED was successful
•
Extensive use of PIRI strategy in 2009:
•
Two Child Health Days were implemented, delivering all antigens,
•
One Immunization Week was held simultaneously with all EMR countries, mainly for advocacy
and strengthening partnerships,
•
During house-to-house polio NIDs, vitamin A and iodine supplements and anti-helminthics
were included.
•
Investment in logistics and cold chain:
•
Cold chain strengthened with GAVI funds,
• Virtually no vaccine stock-outs reported,
•
Score of 94% achieved in independent Effective Vaccine Store Management review conducted
in 2008.
•
Investment in human resources:
•
Mid-level management training conducted annually due to frequent staff turnover.
However: high DTP1-DTP3 dropout rates: around 10% annually during 2005-09, despite:
•
Fixed vaccination sites maintain registers and track defaulters,
•
Community volunteers involved in raising awareness of vaccination — Immunization Societies
and Women's Unions.
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Over the last 3 decades, there have been substantial global efforts to prioritize health interventions and
promote the most cost-effective (e.g., selective primary health care in the 1980s (Walsh and Warren,
1979), and the World Bank's disease control priorities in developing countries exercises in 1993 and
2006 (World Bank 1993, Jamison et al, 2006)). Global initiatives such as GAVI Alliance and the
Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria have provided financial assistance to low income countries to
introduce new technologies for the control of priority diseases. This effort to encourage countries to
adopt a package of priority interventions has not, however, been matched by consistent investment in
strengthening national and district management to deliver the interventions.
The move toward decentralization of health services, with the transition of the health ministry's role
from service delivery to policy-making and monitoring, has made the need for support to district
management ever more critical (Hutchinson and Lafond 2004). Yet frequently, district managers have
no background in management and receive little in-service training for their role. They are expected
to plan, budget, coordinate, organize, supervise and monitor health services in their district, using a
plethora of tools provided by individual programs. They need to manage their limited resources
despite substantial bureaucratic obstacles and little reward. They may be invited to workshops on
micro-components of individual programs (e.g. EPI mid-level managers training, or effective vaccine
management (EVM)), but there are few high-quality, comprehensive, long-term district management
training programs available and accessible to them. They are often away from their workplace,
lacking the skills and motivation to meet the competing demands on them.
While Optimize evaluates potential innovations to improve future vaccine supply chains, urgent action
is needed now in all countries to improve management. Solutions will require the creation of
adequately-remunerated civil service posts, though some activities may be contracted out to the
private sector. There will remain a need for monitoring and co-ordination of the vaccine (and other
commodities) supply chain(s) by Ministries of Health. Some of these areas are included in a new
proposal from WHO IVB to BMGF for support to logistics, which has as priority themes:
•
make immediate technical assistance available to countries for the vaccine supply chain
•
develop and equip regional training institutions for health logistics
•
develop an interactive web-based tool to conduct self-assessment and analysis
•
explore solutions and mechanisms for financing equipment, technical assistance and training in
the field of logistics for health.
The proposal addresses important elements and, if funded, should begin to fill some of the gaps,
although it focuses on the vaccine supply chain and in its current form does not include transport
management. The funds are relatively small, however, and additional work will still be required.
We argue that the Decade of Vaccines should kick-start investment in management capacity and set
the foundation for effective health care. Compared to the long time spanned by the global polio
eradication initiative (already ongoing for over 20 years), a generation of strong managers can be
supported, with lasting impact on delivery of vaccines and other essential interventions. Monitoring,
learning and evaluation of programs to strengthen managerial capacity will help improve applications
for available funds (such as GAVI-HSS) and use them more effectively and efficiently. For example,
in the field of transport management, direct comparison between weaker and stronger systems in a
study in 2001 demonstrated that the better-managed systems were 50 percent more cost-effective and
efficient in supporting health service delivery (Nancollas 2001). Investing in programs to improve
management through a mixture of wide-ranging educational programs and in-depth technical
assistance in key locations, will complement the proposal from WHO for support for a program to
train logisticians. Simultaneously, operational research should be conducted to provide further
information on the most cost-effective strategies for vaccination and other essential health
interventions in different settings. Improved use of monitoring for action at local and national levels
will help to provide long-term and sustainable changes in immunization systems.
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9. References
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vaccination uptake:a randomised cluster controlled trial of knowledge translation in Pakistan. BMC
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Batt K, Fox-Rushy JA, Castillo-Riquelme M. The costs, effects and cost-effectiveness of strategies to
increase coverage of routine immunizations in low- and middleincome countries: systematic review of
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Bhutta ZA, Chopra M, Axelson H, Berman P, Boerma T, Bryce J, Bustreo F, Cavagnero E, Cometto
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Med Int Health. 2009 Jan;14(1):2-10.
Burton A, Monasch R, Lautenbach B, Gacic-Dobo M, Neill M, Karimov R, Wolfson L, Jones G,
Birmingham M. WHO and UNICEF estimates of national infant immunization coverage: methods and
processes. Bull World Health Organ. 2009 Jul;87(7):535-41.
Canavan A, Toonen J, Elovainio R. Performance based financing. An international review of the
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EFTA01121850
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10. List of persons interviewed
International Agencies
Dr Okwo Bele, Director, Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals (IVB), WHO HQ, Geneva
Dr Thomas Cherian, IVB, WHO HQ, Geneva
Dr Rudi Eggers, IVB, WHO HQ, Geneva
Dr. Olivier Ronveaux, Optimize Project, WHO HQ, Geneva
Dr. Nadia Teleb, Regional EPI Advisor, WHO, EMRO
Dr. Nihal Abeysinghe, Routine Immunization and New Vaccines Officer, WHO, SEARO
Dr. Stephen Sosler, Deputy Project Manager, Universal Immunization Program, WHO, New Delhi,
India
Dr. Satish Kumar Gupta, Immunization Officer, UNICEF, New Delhi, India
Dr. Mercy Ahun, Director, Field Services, GAVI Alliance, Geneva
Dr Vance Dietz, Global Immunization Division, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Dr Padma Chandrasekaran, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, India office
Non-governmental organizations
Dr. Mike McQuestion, Sabin Institute
Dr Alfred da Silva, Agence de Medecine Preventive, France
Mr Barry Coleman, Riders for Health
Mr Gary Forster, Transaid
Ms Carolyn Miller, Merlin
LSHTM
Ulla Griffiths
Joanna Armstrong-Schellenberg
EPI Managers
AFR:
Dr. K. O. Antwi-Agyei, National EPI Manager, Ghana
Dr. Tatu Kamau, National EPI Manager, Kenya
EMR:
Dr. Agha Gul Dost, National EPI Manager, Afghanistan
Dr. Altaf Bosan, National EPI Manager, Pakistan
Dr. Amani Abdelmonain, National EPI Manager, Sudan
Dr. Eisa Mohammed Eisa, National EPI Manager, Yemen
SEAR:
Dr. Mohamed Abdul Jalil Mondal, National EPI Manager, Bangladesh
Dr. Prima Yosefina Berliana, National EPI Manager, Indonesia
Dr. IChaymar Mya, Assistant Director, Health Services, Myanmar
Dr. Ram Bichha, Director, Health Services, Nepal
WPR:
Dr. Liang Xiaofeng, National EPI Manager, China
In addition, the ARISE group kindly shared their notes from interviews with personnel at the CDC,
GAVI, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, LSHTM, PATH, USAID, US Office of
Global Health Affairs, World Bank, and WHO.
EFTA01121851
35
I I. Tables
Table 1. Recent coverage trends (WUENIC estimates) in GAVI-eligible countries (excluding EUR) and health
resources
1a. High (>80%) coverage >4 yrs
Drop- Govt
Birth
# un- # under- Nurses/ THE/cap W Bank ODA
DTP 3 (%)
DTP1 out diff
cohort
vacc
vacc
10k
2006 Class
CH
Country
2000 2005 2009 2009 2009 2009
2009
2009
2009
pop
PPP int$
2009
$/child
'mo
AFR
Burundi
80
87
92
98
6
7
283
5660
22640
2
15
LI
9.6
Eritrea
90
96
99
99
0
-14
185
1850
1850
6
28
LI
5.1
Gambia
89
89
98
98
0
-4
62
1240
1240
13
56
LI
10.7
Ghana
88
84
94
96
2
0
766
30640
45960
9
100
LI
11.8
Lesotho
83
87
83
93
11
-11
59
4130
10030
6
143
LMI
5.1
Malawi
75
93
93
97
4
0
608
18240
42560
6
70
LI
14.5
Rwanda
90
95
97
98
1
n/a
413
8260
12390
4
210
LI
20.7
Sao Tome & Pr
82
97
98
98
0
0
5
100
100
19
141
LMI
n/a
Senegal
52
84
86
94
9
0
476
28560
66640
3
72
LI
11.4
U R Tanzania
79
90
85
90
6
2
1812 181200 271800
4
45
LI
8
Togo
64
82
89
93
4
0
215
15050
23650
4
70
LI
3.1
AMR
Bolivia
77
85
85
87
2
0
262
34060
39300
21
204
LMI
7.9
Cuba
95
89
96
98
2
0
116
2320
4640
74
363
UMI
n/a
Guyana
88
93
98
98
0
0
13
260
260
23
264
LMI
n/a
Honduras
94
98
98
99
1
0
202
2020
4040
13
241
LMI
n/a
Nicaragua
83
88
98
98
0
0
140
2800
2800
11
251
LMI
n/a
EMR
Pakistan
62
80
85
90
6
0
5.403 540300 810450
5
51
LMI
3.5
SEAR
Bangladesh
81
93
94
99
5
-7
3,401
34010 204060
3
69
LI
3.3
Bhutan
92
95
96
98
2
0
15
300
600
3
107
LMI
n/a
O P R Korea (F
54
79
93
94
1
0
327
19620
22890
41
49
LI
n/a
Sri Lanka
99
99
97
98
1
0
364
7280
10920
17
213
LMI
n/a
WPR
Cambodia
59
82
94
99
5
0
367
3670
22020
9
167
LI
4
China
85
87
97
98
1
0
18294 365880 548820
10
342
LMI
0.3
Mongolia
95
99
95
95
0
0
50
2500
2500
35
149
LMI
n/a
Viet Nam
96
95
96
97
1
0
1,485
44550
59400
8
264
LI
n/a
EFTA01121852
36
lb. Medium (60-80%) coverage in 2005 and/or 2009
Drop- Govt
# un- # under- Nurses/
THE/
GAVI
World ODA
DTP 3 ("/0)
DTP1 out diff
vacc
vacc
10k
cap
Grouping Bank CH
Country
2000 2005 2009 2009 2009 2009
2009
2009
pop
2006
(GNI
Class $/child
PPP Intl 2005)
2009
Benin
78
70
83
99
16
15
3490
59330
8
46
Poorest
LI
19.6
Burkina Faso
57
82
82
89
8
17
81180 132840
5
87
Poorest
LI
7.7
Cameroon
62
80
80
88
9
0
85320 142200
16
80
Least poor
LI
5.1
C6te d'Ivoire
67
76
81
95
15
0
36450 138510
6
66
Fragile
LMI
2.4
Guinea-Bissau
49
68
68
85
20
14
9900
21120
7
40
Poorest
LI
4.2
Kenya*
82
76
75
80
6
0
306O00
382500
12
105
Intermed
LI
12.9
Mali
43
77
74
85
13
15
82650 143260
6
65
Poorest
LI
7.6
Mauritania
53
71
64
79
19
3
22890
39240
6
45
Poorest
LI
7.3
Mozambique
70
76
76
88
14
0
105240 210480
3
56
Poorest
LI
10.8
Sierra Leone
44
65
75
87
14
16
29510
56750
5
41
Fragile
LI
9.3
Uganda
52
64
64
90
29
19
150200
540720
7
143
Poorest
LI
9.4
Zambia
85
82
81
92
10
17
43920
104310
20
62
Poorest
LI
23.5
Zmbabwe
79
65
73
87
16
0
49270
102330
7
147
Intermed
LI
6.6
EMR
Yemen
61
65
66
77
14
20
198030 292740
7
82
Poorest
LI
3
EUR
Azerbaijan
75
72
73
79
8
21
35490
45630
84
218
Least Poor LMI
10
SEAR
India
60
67
66
83
20
n/a
5E+06 9107580
13
109
Intermed
LMI
2.7
Indonesia
71
72
82
89
8
0
459140
751320
8
87
Least Poor LMI
2
WPR
Kiribati
90
79
86
92
7
0
n/a
n/a
30
290
Least Poor LMI
n/a
Solomons
82
78
81
83
2
0
2720
3040
14
107
Poorest
LMI
n/a
EFTA01121853
37
1c. Increasing coverage
1
Drop- Govt
# un- # under Nurses/ THE/
GAVI
W
Bank
ODA
DTP 3 %)
DTP1 out diff
vacc
vacc
10k
cap
Grouping Class
CH
Country
2000 2005 2009 2009 2009 2009
2009
2009
pop
2006 (GNI 2005) 2009 $/child
AFR
PPP int$
Angola'
31
47
73
93
22
0
54880 211680
14
71
Fragile
LMI
5.4
Comoros (thi
70
68
83
94
12
0
1320
3740
7
35
Poorest
LI
n/a
Congo (the)
33
65
91
92
1
0
10080
11340
10
31
Fragile
LI
1.3
DRC
40
60
77
91
15
15
263700 673900
5
18
Fragile
LI
3.6
Ethiopia
56
69
79
86
8
0
438480 657720
2
22
Poorest
LI
9.3
Liberia
46
60
64
75
15
28
37250
53640
3
39
Fragile
LI
15.3
Madagascar
57
82
78
80
3
11
139000 152900
3
34
Poorest
LI
5.7
Niger (the)
34
45
70
82
15
23
146700 244500
2
27
Poorest
LI
9.1
EMR
Afghanistan'
31
76
83
94
12
0
78120 221340
5
29
Fragile
LI
10.3
Djibouti
46
71
89
90
1
0
2400
2640
4
100
Least Poor
LMI
12.8
Sudan (they
62
78
84
92
9
7
104000 208000
9
61
Fragile
LMI
11.1
SEAR
Myanmar
82
73
90
93
3
0
71120 101600
10
43
Poorest
LI
2.5
Nepal
80
75
82
84
2
7
116800 131400
5
78
Poorest
LI
2
Timor-Leste
55
72
76
5
0
11040
12880
22
169
Fragile
LMI
n/a
1d. Low (<60%) coverage
Drop- Govt
# un- # under Nurses/ THE/
GAVI
W
Bank
ODA
DTP 3%)
DTP1 out diff
vacc
vacc
10k
cap
Grouping Class
CH
Country
2000 2005 2009 2009 2009 2009
2009
2009
pop
2006 (GNI 2005) 2009 $/child
AFR
PPP int$
CAR
37
54
54
64
16
22
55440
70840
4
55
Fragile
LI
5.7
Chad
26
23
23
45
49
52
279400 391160
3
40
Poorest
LI
2.1
Eq Guinea
33
33
33
65
49
41
9100
17420
5
280
Poorest
HI
37.8
Guinea
47
59
57
75
24
28
99250 170710
5
116
Poorest
LI
4.2
Nigeria
29
36
42
52
19
29
3E+06 4E+06
17
50
Interned
LMI
6.9
AMR
Haiti
49
59
59
_83
29
n/a
46580 112340
1
96
Fragile
LI
11.1
EMR
Somalia
33
35
31
40
23
20
241200 277380
2
Fragile
LI
5.8
WPR
Lao PDR"
51
49
57
76
25
10
41280
73960
10
85
Poorest
LI
4.7
PNG
59
61
52
70
26
12
62400
99840
5
134
Interned
LMI
12.2
• WHO-UNICEF estimates since 2000 based entirely or almost entirely on administrative reports and
WHO-UNICEF recommend a national high-quality survey be conducted
" WHO-UNICEF note uncertainty in the size of the birth cohort. No recent nationally representative survey conducted
Dropout = difference in DTP1 and DTP3 coverage expressed as a percentage of DTP1 coverage= ((DTP1-
DTP3)*100)/DTP1
Govt DTP3 diff = absolute difference between reported DTP3 coverage and WHO-UNICEF best estimates
THE: total health expenditure
ODA CH : official development assistance for child heatlh services - from Greco et al Lancet 2008 -
only estimated for the 68 Countdown priority countries
EFTA01121854
3s
'rabic 2. Main countries with internally displaced populations and/or people in refugee-like situations
due to conflict, 2007-8
Source: Human Development Report 2009
Country
Internally displaced
People in refugee-like situations
Populations 2008
in other countries, 2007
Afghanistan
200000
1147800
Angola
20000
Azerbaijan
573000
Bangladesh
500000
Bosnia and Herzegovina
125000
Burundi
100000
Central African Republic
108000
Chad
186000
Colombia
0
481600
Cote d'Ivoire
621000
D.R. Congo
1400000
Eritrea
32000
Ethiopia
200000
India
500000
Iraq
2842000
30000
Kenya
400000
Myanmar
503000
Peru
150000
Philippines
314000
Serbia
248000
Somalia
1100000
Sri Lanka
500000
Sudan
6000000
Syrian Arab Republic
433000
Timor-Leste
30000
Uganda
869000
EFTA01121855
39
Table 3: Indicators to monitor immunization program performance (adapted from Hadler et al
2008)
Program
component
Indicators
Program
outputs
% Fully vaccinated children (if routine reports are used, DTP3 taken as proxy)
% districts with >80% DTP3 coverage in infants*
% districts with U90% measles vaccine coverage in infants*
Service
delivery**
% of planned outreach sessions that were conducted on schedule
% of planned fixed site sessions that were conducted on schedule
Access to
services
% of children up-to-date (BCG and DTPI/OPV I) by age 2 months
Tracking
activities
"Dropout" - difference in percentage receiving DTPI/OPV1 and either DTP3/OPV3
or measles vaccine
Use of all
opportunities
Percentage of children receiving all vaccines for which they are eligible at each visit
Safety
Proportion of districts that have been supplied with adequate (equal or more)
number of AD syringes for all routine immunizations during the year.
Logistics and
cold chain
Proportion of districts that had no interruption in vaccine supply'
Percentage of facilities storing vaccine at recommended temperatures
Vaccine effectiveness in expected range for each vaccine evaluated
Transport***
Kilometers/vehicle or motorbike/month (high km = high utilization)
Percent use for service delivery and service delivery support (higher=more effective)
Policy of planned preventive maintenance (PPM) & % PPM activities conducted
Full cost per km (low cost = more efficient use of vehicles/motorbikes)
Surveillance/
monitoring
% expected district disease surveillance reports received at national level *
% expected district coverage reports received at national level*
Management
and
supervision
Country has 5-year immunization plan
% districts having microplans that include immunization activities*
% districts that did >1 supervisory visit to all Health facilities in last year*
Provider
knowledge***
Proportion of providers who know and follow recommended guidelines, including
those on simultaneous administration, contraindications, and safe injection
procedures
* on the WHO-UNICEF Joint Reporting Form on Immunization (JRF)
** proposal in GPEI strategic plan that polio officers will assist in monitoring these indicators
*** no indicators routinely monitored by EPI to date
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Table 4. Advantages and disadvantages of methods to measure vaccination coverage
:ss
:::::11:aa:::
Register-
based
(electronic)
Can give complete and accurate
information on cumulative
vaccination status of individuals
and populations
Can be used to set appointments,
issue reminders and recalls
Use of electronic systems could
reduce time spent on paper
registers that are widespread in
low income countries and often
not used
Need good computer access
Need complete birth registry for true
denominator
Need unique ID number that is kept throughout
life
If held locally, difficult to track vaccination of
migrants
If held nationally, feedback/use at local level
may be slow
Requires adequate funding and human
resources
Routine
reports of
vaccinations
delivered
Simple in conception
Continuous information allows
monitoring of cumulative coverage
through the year and by
district/health facility
Can be used at local level to track
coverage and dropout rates
Population denominators often inaccurate
Private sector often does not report
Exaggeration of doses administered common
(e.g. double-counting of same child if home-
based record mislaid; inclusion of children
outside target age group, or purposeful
exaggeration)
Transcription errors at each health system level
when paper-based systems used
Surveys
If well-conducted, can provide
accurate information
Other indicators (e.g. missed
opportunities, caretaker
knowledge) can be assessed
Involvement of health workers can
be training opportunity
Large-scale surveys for multiple
programs can reduce costs
Lot quality sample surveys can be
used to identify poor-performing
districts/health facilities
Quality of data depends on training,
supervision and quality control
Sampling frame often based on outdated census
information
Home-based records may be missing or
incomplete
Participation rate will determine reliability of
results.
Often long delays until results are known.
Small sample sizes give imprecise results; large
sample sizes are expensive and more time-
consuming
EFTA01121857
41
12. Figures
Figure I .
Global Immunization 1980-2009, DTP3 coverage
global coverage at 82% in 2009
120
100
rn
to
80
>
60
0
ca
40
20
0
g151515Igg
&S₹§1§§€4§Agg
§rgggggg
gg
I=
Global
—African
—
Eastern Mediterranean —
European
—
Western Pacific
American
—South East Asian
Scars WHO LNICEf oninge okras°, 19.04COI. h1)1010 Deedehk B lay 3)I0
EFTA01121858
42
2a. DTP1 and DTP3 coverage (%),
Benin 1985-2008
100 %
•—•_•__._
90
80
UCT-1
--a----.
70
50
40
a--"I
30
RED
P20
20
lia—a
2114
SS%
10
MS
0
1986
1998
1990
1992
1994
1995
1999
2000
2002
2004
2005
2008
DTP3
DTP1 —
WHO-UNICEF estimates. downloaded 6 May 2010
RED • Reacltg Every District approach introduced in 29% of districts in 200.3 and 35% since 2034
UCI = Universal Childhood Immunization: ISS = GAVI Immunization Services Support
2b. DTP1 and DTP3 coverage (%),
Cameroon 1982-2008
DTP3 —
Errpil
WHO-UNICEF estimates, downloaded 6 May 2010
Reaching Every District approach introduced In 15% of districts In 20334 and 100% since 2005
UCI = Universal Childhood Immunization: ISS = GAVI Immunization Services Support
2c.DTP1 and DTP3 coverage (%),
DR Congo 1982-2008
7
5L
•
amp
03
2,
ISS
IL
„
0
40
* 1'
.4P gglg
e's ot e 496 b
19
DTP3 —
DTP1 —
WHO-UNICEF estimates. downloaded 6 May 2010
Reaching Every District approach eltrOdU090 In 35% of diStriCtS 1n 2034 and 100% since 2036
UCI = Universal Childhood Immunization: ISS = GAVI Immunization Services Support
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43
40'
4, 45P
is? 451'
2d. DTP1 and DTP3 coverage CYO,
Ethiopia 1982-2008
,g
100
70
611
V.,
in
21
l°
UCI
•-
Jj
RE 15T
R
44
+.-ea—r•—•
18$
.1.....".
gggg
cps g g cps eft it is? 44 cps
DTP3
DTP1 —
WHO-UNICEF estimates, downloaded 6 May 2010
Reaching Every District approach iltf0d0Ced In 15%d districts n 2003 and 66%in 2005-6
UCI = Universal Childhood Immunization: ISS = GAVI Immunization Services Support
2e.DTP1 and DTP3 coverage (°/0),
Ghana 1982-2008
100
cc
SO
70
60
50
do
20
20
10
0
DTP3
DTP1 —
WHO-UNICEF estimates, downloaded 6 May 2010
Reaching Every District approach not formally introduced
UCI = Universal Childhood Immunization: ISS = GAVI Immunization Services Support
2f. DTP1 and DTP3 coverage CYO,
Madagascar 1982-2008
RID ZS%
Kr
ISS
DTP3
DTP1 —
WHO-UNICEF estimates. downloaded 6 May 2010
Reaching Every District approach introduced In 32%d districts n 2033 and 68%in 2005-6
UCI = Universal Childhood Immunization: ISS = GAVI Immunization Services Support
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2g. DTP1 and DTP3 coverage (%),
Sierra Leone 1999-2008
1999
100
90
•--___._
80
70
60
50
•
40
RED 21%
REO SO%
30
L
r
20
ISS
10
0
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
DTP3
DTP1 —
WHO-UNICEF estimates, downloaded 6 May 2010
Reaching Every District appmeth introduced in 21% of districts in 2004 and 50% by 2006
UCI = Universal Childhood Immunization: ISS = GAVI Immunization Services Support
2h. DTP1 and DTP3 coverage (°/0),
Togo 1982-2008
100
93
ao
70
• _
60
...ft
so
RED 100%
do
30
20
10
1SS
la
?
$
0
(P. al e e
DTP3
DTP1 —
WHO-UNICEF estimates, downloaded 6 May 2010
Reaching Every District approach introduced in 66% of districts in 2002 and 100% since 2003
UCI = Universal Childhood Immunization; ISS = GAVI Immunization Services Support
2i. DTP1 and DTP3 coverage (%),
Uganda 1982-2008
100
90
so
TO
...—r-
-•—•—• _• —•--4—
60
50
RED 100%1 J0
20
-a • a--
10
S t
155
S . S t S t
1,
S t S t 1.# S t
°
0 46,,
0
DTP3
DTP1 —
WHO-UNICEF estimates. downloaded 6 May 2010
Reaching Every District apcecedi introduced in 100% of districts in 2003
UCI = Universal Childhood Immunization; ISS = GAVI Immunization Services Support
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3. DTP3 coverage 1987-2009 in
Bangladesh, WUENIC estimates
4. DTP3 coverage 1985-2009 in
Sudan, WUENIC estimates
100
90
80
70
60
50
.10
30
20
10
0
0 0
1
I
04,0004,0000,see,e
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