In March 2021, Nigeria rolled out a COVID-19 Vaccine national campaign. Just as with every other campaign effort, it was met with initial scepticism and hesitation. While some states were able to quickly accept and adopt the vaccine, some other states were hesitant. A prime example of this was the Kogi state government.
This hesitancy may have contributed to the state’s delay in kicking off the vaccination campaign for the virus. As a matter of fact, the State was the last to commence vaccination of its citizens; one month after the national roll out. Having kicked off its own vaccination campaign, the race to catch up with the rest of the country became daunting with the state ranking amongst the lowest in terms of progress made with vaccine uptake.
Interventions have been made by leaders in the health sector to not just ensure vaccine accessibility but also advocacy for stakeholders to encourage vaccine uptake across the state. One of the most recent interventions is the optimization of the Electronic Management of Immunization Data (EMID) application by eHealth Africa for the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) supported by GAVI.
The EMID Application is a tool used for real-time data collection, including offline data. It was developed for the Nigerian terrain in which most health facilities are in areas with little or no internet connectivity and deployed for the collation of COVID-19 data across the 36+1 states. However, in line with the development roadmap of the EMID application, it has now been expanded to include Routine Immunisation services (Electronic Immunization Registry) Primary Health Care (PHC) services, and Polio Supplemental Immunizations Activities (PSIAs)/Non-Polio Supplemental Immunization (NPSIAs) campaigns.
In view of these optimization efforts, eHealth Africa implemented a week-long State Training of Trainers (STOT) & step-down training in Kogi State on the use of the EMID mobile application.
The aim of the training of trainers was to build the knowledge and skills of the 21 Local Immunisation Officers (LIO) in the use of the updated EMID mobile application and to provide further training and capacity-building activities to about 500 other data recorders and EMID focal persons at the individual local government areas (LGA) level. The EMID app would be used for effective real-time facility-level data collection and daily health services data transmission.
The Project Manager of Kogi State Emergency Routine Immunisation Coordination Center (SERICC), Mrs. Garba Khadijat, while speaking at the training said: “The introduction of this application will afford Kogi State efficient immunization data coverage, reporting and reduce the gaps experienced due to manual data recording”
The training was instructor-led, It was delivered through lectures, use of visual aids, and engaged the participants through individual activities, role play, video and slide presentations, simulations, and do-it-yourself tasks.
In his own words, Mr Salami Oni, the EMID focal person at Okehi LGA, said ‘I am very impressed with the training we were given at the state level and confident enough to step it down at the LGA. He added that any immunization work done without proper reporting is void.
Through supportive supervision, the eHealth Africa team ensured a correct assessment of the learning progress: pre-training and post-training tests were administered during the beginning and end of the training, containing both open-ended and multiple-choice questions. This accounted for an average improvement in observable knowledge and skills.
During and after the training, all participants expressed their enthusiasm to learn and commitment to explore the application further to strengthen their knowledge of its usage. This would make them efficient in data collection and reporting.
