Description of Session
With the rapid emergence of Digital Immunization Registries (DIRs) across low-middle income countries for achieving better immunization outcomes, this session will focus on providing participants with our experience of developing, testing and scaling up the Zindagi Mehfooz (Safe Life; ZM) Digital Immunization Registry in Pakistan. The presentation will be organized to follow the continuum of a scaled program, starting with conception and development of Registry through seed funding from a UN Innovations Working Group grant in 2010. During the pilot, 25,000 children were enrolled in ZM and positive impact in immunization outcomes led to further funding from WHO and NORAD to support a district-wide implementation in 2015. Over the next 2 years, over 63,000 children were enrolled and through continued Government engagement, highlighting Program impact at various forums, and continuous iterative improvements in the System, the Registry was eventually scaled up across the entire province in 2017 through funding from WHO and GAVI. Currently, the DIR has enrolled 1.5m children across the entire Sindh province in Pakistan (with a population of 48m) through 2500 government vaccinators, across 1400 health facilities in 27 districts. We will also discuss the impact achieved till date, including the increase in the Pentavalent-3 coverage rates from 59% at baseline to 71% for children enrolled in the Registry, as well as the enrolment and linkage of ‘zero-dose’ children to the health system. Additionally, we will cover the Registry’s unique features including individual level data to track each child in the community, web-based dashboard, unique QR code based identification, interactive SMS reminders, a decision support system to guide vaccinators for routine and catch-up immunizations, predictive analytics to identify children at high risk of drop-out and customized report generation for monitoring.
