ODK and DHIS2 used in Uganda to help vaccinate 19.5 million children

In Oct 2019, Uganda vaccinated 19.5 million kids from measles and polio. ODK was used for data collection and DHIS2 was used for reporting.

In October 2019, the Ministry of Health, through the Uganda National EPI, with support from Gavi, WHO, UNICEF and other partners, conducted the country’s largest ever measles-rubella and oral poliovirus (OPV) vaccination campaign. The campaign targeted 18.1 million children aged 9 months to 15 years for measlesrubella vaccination and 8.2 million children aged 0 to 5 years for polio vaccination. The first three days targeted children in school and the final two days targeted children at home who had been missed during the school vaccinations.
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Drawing on the country’s positive experience using ODK for acute flaccid paralysis surveillance for the past four years, the Ministry of Health decided to implement ODK for the measles-rubella campaign. Forms could be created easily for use on ODK; and users could fill out and submit forms using their mobile phones. However the tool lacked user-friendly visuals, so ODK was complemented by a DHIS2 dashboard that would promptly consolidate, visualize and analyse the ODK data.
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Ultimately, the campaign reached nearly 19.5 million children, including 18.1 million children who were vaccinated against measles-rubella (100 per cent of the target) and 7.96 million children who were vaccinated against polio (97 per cent of target). The campaign required tremendous coordination, involving 16,000 schools, 20,000 vaccination posts, 134,000 community health workers, 67,000 village councils, as well as local government structures at the parish, sub-county, health sub-district and district levels. In a press statement, the Minister of Health remarked that, “as a result of this mass immunization campaign, most of our isolation wards have since returned to their measles-free status.

Read about the best practices and lessons learned in the case study from UNICEF and GAVI here: The Use of Digital Technologies and Approaches for Real-Time Monitoring of Supplementary Immunization Activities.

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