by Moshood Isah
The race to ensure accessibility to COVID-19 Vaccine and intensive campaigns to promote the uptake of the vaccines led to its routinization especially in developing countries. To further ensure the successful implementation of its COVID-19 vaccine deployment plan and address existing challenges of data management, Nigeria developed the Electronic Management of Immunization Data (EMID) system in 2021. By the end of the year, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) revealed that Nasarawa state, located in North Central part of Nigeria has again overtaken other states in the COVID-19 mass vaccination campaign in Nigeria.
However, recent experience has also revealed that manual data collection remains vulnerable to damage or manipulation. Digital solutions remain mostly more recommended as it enables more accurate data capturing and better storage process. However, the potential challenges that could hamper the progress of development and utilization of digital solutions for management of immunization data are likely technical glitches and capacity limitations of health officials, especially in underserved communities.
To Address these challenges, eHealth Africa in partnership with National Primary Health Care Development Agency supported by GAVI developed an optimized version of the EMID mobile application, incorporating routine immunization to further standardize and harmonize data collection and storage. Thus, eHA successfully completed the training of healthcare personnel across the country, in the use of the EMID Native App.
Speaking during the training session for healthcare personnel and immunization recorders across over 300 Primary Health facilities in Nasarawa state, key stakeholders highlighted how the optimum utilization of the EMID application will sustain vaccination progress in the state.
LGA EMID Focal Persons in Nasarawa state after a Training of Trainers on optimised EMID application
Abubakar Alilu Awei, State Primary Healthcare Development Board, (SPHCDB) Immunization Officer (SIO) said the presence of EMID Focal persons at the LGAs ensuring that all recorders upload information of clients on the national server was indeed instrumental in the state progress during the COVID 19 vaccination. He said, “You may recall that Nasarawa state emerged as the overall best performing state in Nigeria in terms of COVID-19 vaccination and also the best performing state in the North central zone. This may not be unconnected to the good use of our EMID application that we adopted during the COVID 19 vaccination.”
Awei further lauded the incorporation of routine immunization into the application saying, the training is timely as it will enable the state to have data on the server to enable adequate tracking of client information. He said, “with the optimized EMID app, at a glance we can check on the client that has been vaccinated with the first antigens. So when they come back to the health facilities for the next antigen it's just for the recorder at the health facility to go to the server and update the current antigens that they have received”. It reinforces the prospects for effective management of immunization data.
In a similar vein, Beatrice Samuel, NPHCDA, Zonal technical officer, Nasarawa state said, “one of the things we really enjoyed is that we could see the accessibility, the user friendly and not much challenge”. While describing the optimization of the EMID app as a milestone for the agency and eHealth Africa, she called for its sustainability.
“I want to believe that the excitement we have now would not just go away. It should be something that will not give us challenges when we go to the field. There should be a sustainable native app for us to enjoy more and more”.
Immunization Recorder in Doma LGA of Nasarawa State
In his words, Ahmed Ibrahim, EMID State Focal Person for Nasarawa State lauded eHealth Africa for leading the optimization of the application saying, “ our recorders at the health facility will now know the value and importance of keeping record”. He said the application guarantees the safety of data in its electronic form saying, “even if the facility is burnt you can still go to the database and search for the record of any person”, he concluded.