Today we’re excited to announce the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is awarding VillageReach a grant to improve vaccine delivery in Mozambique. The two-year Final 20 Project targets more than 400 of the Mozambique Ministry of Health’s rural health centers that serve a population of approximately 13 million. See our press release announcement and this blog that is also featured at Impatient Optimists.
Who are the Final 20 and Why do we Need to Reach Them?
Today, more than 80 percent of children around the world receive a complete routine of life-saving vaccines during their first year of life. That is a significant increase from the 17 percent coverage 30 years ago, giving millions of children each year a better chance of seeing their first birthday. This increase in coverage is the result of decades of hard work to establish immunization systems in countries where previously, they simply did not exist.
Despite this huge success, these immunization systems have reached their maximum capacity. A considerable gap remains in reaching the final 20 percent–the children who are the hardest to reach, and the ones currently not served by existing immunization programs.
These children usually live in remote, rural communities, several miles from a health facility with little transport available, in villages that can’t be reached by large delivery vehicles, beyond the reach of cell phones, and where electricity is available only sporadically, if at all. In these communities, vaccine coverage rates are very low and child mortality unacceptably high because weak underlying infrastructure limits the potential of what the health system can deliver.
To reach this final 20 percent–24 million children–with the current group of life-saving vaccines, not to mention the exciting new vaccines that are just being introduced, it’s time to apply new innovative approaches and delivery models.
Increased attention is now being directed to this challenge. As part of a broad strategy by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve vaccine supply chains, VillageReach is working to scale new system innovations to improve vaccine distribution across Mozambique.
The Final 20 Project is building a sustainable model of innovative supply chain design, enhanced data collection and reporting, and public-private partnerships to improve the underlying infrastructure the health system requires. Our goal is to provide tools, research and evidence that will benefit Mozambique and other countries as they work to improve their immunization systems to accommodate the new vaccines and improve the health of their children.
The Final 20 Project is an extension of a model we have applied in Mozambique for over ten years, while working with provincial government health departments (DPS) to streamline their logistics system. The ad hoc collection-based approach, where frontline health workers must leave their health posts every month to collect vaccines and related supplies from their district office, was replaced by a dedicated distribution system (Dedicated Logistics System or DLS) with a small number of specialized government workers visiting the health centers monthly to deliver vaccines and supplies, repair equipment, collect data, and provide supportive supervision.
The project incorporates an electronic logistics management information system that enables more practical and reliable data collection. This system allows the DPS to improve the monitoring of commodity availability at the health facility level and delivery components in order to improve the flow of vaccines through the supply chain and reduce shortages of stock even in the hardest to reach areas. With more regular data being reported, administrators are now able to see what is happening and make informed management decisions to improve system performance.
VillageReach also leverages the private sector to supply critical infrastructure services, such as communications, energy and transport, that are critical for both the health system and the private sector.
For example, one of the barriers to a functioning cold chain for vaccine distribution in the remote northern provinces is a lack of fuel to power vaccine refrigerators in regions far from the electrical grid. In response we established an energy services company, VidaGas, in partnership with a local organization, to provide propane gas to the health centers.
Since its establishment in 2002, the company has grown significantly to become the largest independent energy services supplier in northern Mozambique. The revenues VidaGas gains from selling to non-health sectors help sustain the company and support its obligations to the health system. With propane-based refrigeration now being replaced by new, more efficient solar and passive refrigeration technologies, in the Final 20 Project, we will work with the private sector, DPS, and other partners to support this transition, as well as, continue to develop creative private sector-based solutions to fill gaps in infrastructure needed to support vaccine distribution.
These are just a few examples of system innovations to improve vaccine distribution in Mozambique. We are excited to be a part of these and other efforts to extend the availability of life-saving vaccines to all children around the world.
Now is the time to reach that final 20 percent.
Allen Wilcox
President
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