Daily Times

KARACHI: The Sindh government’s Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) in collaboration with Aga Khan University has introduced a mobile application for real-time monitoring of routine childhood immunisation in the province. The programme would cover a number of children being immunised, vaccinators’ activity and vaccines stock available at union council with real data instantly available for checking at district and provincial level. Named ‘Teeko’, the app was designed with Aga Khan Development Network e-Health Resource Centre. It would focus performance and accountability of vaccination and monitor independently through a smart phone android application. The innovations were designed in close collaboration with Sindh Expanded Programme on Immunisation, implemented through the district government and with input from United Nations’ agencies. According to the Aga Khan University, routine immunisation rates have been falling in Sindh from 37 percent in 2006-07 to 29 percent in 2012-13. “This is one of the reasons behind polio endemicity and is leading to outbreaks of preventable childhood diseases such as measles. Other diseases covered by routine immunisation are hepatitis B, pneumococcal infections, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis,” it added. A pilot project implemented by Aga Khan in district Tando Muhammad Khan (TMK) and supported by Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations assessed the barriers and strengthened government EPI services through game changers. “The result was a jump in routine immunisation from 15-19 percent surveyed for different vaccines to 49-84 percent as reported by independent monitoring”, said project lead for this component Dr Shehla Zaidi, Associate Professor, Women and Child Health Division, Aga Khan University. According to her, the main bottlenecks were low accountability of routine immunisation, children often getting missed for vaccination at health facilities, insufficient visits to villages by vaccinators, and little efforts at routine immunisation awareness even by the health workforce on ground. “The vaccination reporting is unverified, the numbers reported by government’s EPI are much higher than that by the national Pakistan Demographic and Health Surveys, showing the gap in performance accountability.”