Description of Session
Despite relative success of the Malawi immunization program, Save the Children in collaboration with the Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI) Unit and Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI) Unit of the Ministry of Health, identified low visibility of EPI logistics data and a lack of consistent procedures for reporting and resupplying EPI products. This situation often leads to interrupted vaccination services in some parts of the country and eventually leads to poor performances of the EPI system. Responding to challenges, Ministry of Health with support from Save the Children, piloted EPI cStock intervention to address these challenges in Neno and Thyolo (Southern Malawi). The end-line survey for piloted districts showed improvement in stock levels of vaccines with 100 % facilities reporting having all vaccines compared to 71% with BCG, 79% with Polio and 79% with measles vaccines at baseline. Additionally, at baseline 24 % of facilities in Neno and 19 % in Thyolo showed problems in timeliness of reporting with 100% at end line. Compared to the baseline, the end-line survey showed improvement in availability of EPI products from 78% to 100% on fridge tags and from 50% to 100% on fridge thermometer. These findings influenced the scaling up of services to other two more districts. Comparing reporting rates and completeness for EPI cStock with Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM) for newly scaled up districts, EPI cStock reporting rates (75% on average) and completeness (73 % on average) for report submitted are better than those of ICCM (22% and 24%) for the same facilities. This presentation gives a highlight and demonstrates how data from pilot project was used to influence scaling up, the process undertaken and how 9 principals of developing digital health were applied during scaling up. Furthermore, data from the scaled up facilities will be presented.
