Mallam Sabo Audu is a cold chain officer in Bodinga Local Government Area of Sokoto State. His major responsibility is to ensure that vaccines and dry goods are made available to all health facilities in the eleven wards of Bodinga LGA. Over the years, he has experienced several challenges with the distribution of vaccines from the state cold store to his local government area and finally to health facilities in all the wards.
Mallam Sabo described the supply of vaccines from the cold store as inconsistent and not well organised. Many times, the complete range of vaccines needed were unavailable and there was no proper schedule to inform him about when to receive his stock. On top of this, he often needed to transport the vaccines at his own cost.
“I usually visit the state central cold store to get all the vaccines I need and I have to pay the cost of transportation from my personal pocket or sometimes with the support of the LGA Health Director. Most times, I do not get reimbursed.”
The frequent unavailability of vaccines at the health facilities resulted in children not being able to access immunization at the right age.
In 2016, eHealth Africa commenced the Vaccine Direct Delivery Project in Sokoto State. Vaccine Direct Delivery (VDD) is a third party logistics service that ensures vaccines and dry goods are delivered timely, at correct doses and in good condition to health facilities at the ward level.
eHA delivers vaccines to all the health facilities in Mallam Sabo’s LGA and also provides him with buffer stock in case the facilities run out before the next delivery schedule. Using an application called LoMIS Deliver, eHA plans, schedules and routes health facilities to conform to cycles of delivery. The VDD project has made the delivery of vaccines and dry goods more efficient and more responsive. The delivery process is timely and properly scheduled so each LGA or facility knows when and on what day to expect their vaccines.
eHA also sends delivery schedules to guide the health delivery officers (HDOs) when they pick up vaccines from the state cold store. Equally as important is the accountability and accuracy of data that VDD guarantees. The process of determining what amounts of each vaccine to deliver is completely automated leaving no room for the health delivery officers to make an error. Once vaccines are received by the facilities, the officers in charge at the facility have to sign off on the delivery officer’s application to acknowledge receipt.
“VDD has made my work very easy. I can go 2 to 3 weeks without any of my apex or cascade health facilities coming to collect vaccines, simply because the facilities now get all their vaccines through eHealth Africa’s delivery in the right amounts without coming to the LGA cold store. Also, I no longer need to use my money to transport vaccines.”
Thanks to eHealth Africa’s Vaccine Direct Delivery project, last mile delivery of vaccines is more efficient and now more than ever, Sokoto state is well on its way to ensuring complete access to immunization services for its children.
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In the last 6 months (Jan-June), over 2 million vaccines have been delivered to average of 351 cold-chain equipped health facilities monthly, leading to the immunization of over 800,000 children against Vaccine preventable diseases in Sokoto State