eHealth Africa Launches Vaccine Direct Service in Sokoto State

By Daniel Ojabo

In partnership with the Sokoto State government, eHealth Africa (eHA) just launched a vaccine delivery and immunization campaign to address supply related gaps in Sokoto State, Nigeria.

Recently concluded phase of the Vaccine Direct Delivery (VDD) campaign in Kano State saw over 7 million doses of antigens delivered and 4.6 million children immunized. Building on this success, eHA will be engaging Sokoto State as a third party logistics partner to optimize the timely delivery of vaccines and routine immunization supplies across all 23 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state.

According to the VDD Project Manager Adamu Lawan, “eHA is contracted to deliver vaccines to health facilities at the wards across all 23 LGAs in the state.”

VDD will be implemented to support demand creation activities and address supply related factors on routine immunization uptake. It will provide a reliable vaccine delivery service for state Primary Health Care (PHCs) facilities in the state, allowing them to run monthly Immunization Plus Days (IPDs) in addition to regular vaccination clinics for children under five.

“eHA is contracted to deliver vaccines to health facilities at the wards across all 23 LGAs in the state.

- Adamu Lawan, Project Manager

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The project, which kicked off on 13th December of 2016, is expected to run for 12 months and work with over 80 (PHCs) in Sokoto State. Health facilities will be clustered by Wards/LGAs in order to examine the effect of demand creation against improved supply over a 6-month period.

“Part of the mandate is also to help collect sharp and other wastes from the health facilities we make deliveries to, and deliver back to the cold stores,” Lawan added.

Several immunization programs across all 36 Nigerian states have seen a steady increase in vaccination coverage over the past decade. According to a 2014 report by the National Population Commission (NPC) of Nigeria and ICF Macro, full vaccination coverage of children aged 12-23 months was highest in Imo State (62.4%) and lowest in Sokoto State (1.4%).

The project will monitor and inform eHA, the Sokoto State government, and other stakeholders on the effect of improved vaccine delivery on childhood routine immunization in Sokoto State. The results of these research activities are expected to present an overall picture of the extent to which improving vaccine supply chain affects routine immunization coverage in Sokoto.

eHA will engage the state government through Routine Immunization officers who will track demand creation activities in their health facilities. Current routine immunization coverage information in Sokoto will also be documented using a desk review and analysis of District Health Information System (DHIS2) data. This research will be used to create a benchmark for evaluating the expected outcome of improving vaccine supply chain and delivery in Sokoto.

Meet the Staff - Israel Kollie

Israel launched his career with eHealth Africa’s  Liberia office (eHA-L) more than 2 years ago, at the height of Liberia’s Ebola outbreak and in the fledgling days of our Monrovia-based operations.

Eager to do his part to slow the devastating spread of the virus, Israel signed up as an eHealth Africa volunteer. Capitalizing on his data entry and analysis skills, Israel trained staff at the National Ebola Call Center and Island Clinic, contributing to the launch of electronic sample reporting systems (a giant leap beyond the clinics’ previous paper-based records).

Given his success as a Data System Trainer, Israel was quickly offered an employment contract and became eHA-L’s inaugural Information Systems team member. New responsibilities led to valuable learning opportunities for Israel. Only months later, Israel’s supervisor identified that he possessed the qualities of a systems engineer, and he eagerly accepted a promotion to Junior Software Developer.

“My skills have grown more quickly than I would ever have imagined,” said Israel. From volunteer to trainer to eHA-Liberia’s newest professional developer, Israel’s career trajectory is certainly on the rise.

From entering data and upgrading Excel files and Google sheets, Israel now contributes to an Interoperable Health Information System. The system is the first of its kind, and it will allow disease surveillance data to be shared across the Liberian government’s sub-systems. The system’s implications are staggering in terms of policy-making capacities for Liberia’s Ministry of Health. They greatly improve early disease detection capabilities, which would be extremely valuable in the event of another outbreak.

Israel has played an integral role in the prevention of future disease outbreaks in Liberia by helping revolutionize paper-based sample collection methods, digitizing lab reporting, and launching state-of-the-art disease surveillance systems.

After two years on the Information Systems team, Israel conveys his pride to be part of eHA-L. During the outbreak, Israel was eager to be one of the “frontliners” in the fight against Ebola.

“I was always proud every time I received a call from other partners for eHA to intervene using tech devices in the response,” Israel said. “This demonstrated that eHA was doing something worthwhile”, he added.

Israel has already been recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for exemplary volunteer service, as well as by local media outlets for his contribution to his country’s health systems. In addition to working with eHA-L full time, Israel attends courses every evening and is well on his way to becoming a professional systems engineer. eHA-L is proud to have such a dedicated individual on our team.

“My responsibilities have opened my eyes to something new. I don’t think I can be more motivated than this any time soon.” - Israel

They Thought We Were Flowers, But We Were Actually Seeds

By Taylor Snyder

When eHA-Guinea’s (eHA-G) staff first arrived in the village of Saran, they found the valley landscape to be lush, with an abundance of crops growing in wide varieties. It was October of 2015, and many women in the village were out in the fields tending to their potatoes, which were being grown in tiny individual plots of land. While connecting with the community on ways to collaborate toward strengthening their district health posts, eHA-G’s staff was inspired to also leverage their experience supporting female entrepreneurship.

eHA-G’s staff described to several village women how they could combine their small plots of potatoes into one larger vegetable plot, in order to increase revenues and simultaneously decrease the amount of time they spent working in the field. The women followed that technical advice and expanded it further by forming a cooperative, combining plots of land, working together in the field, and diversifying their crops beyond potatoes to include ginger and cabbage. This dynamic cooperative commenced in February of 2016 and is now composed of 20 smart, joyful, and dedicated women.

Working together and employing several of their natural leadership skills is saving these women time, earning them more money, and creating a team culture where they count on each other. When they were working individually, they only earned a small amount of revenue. As a result of the new cooperative, they currently have 1 million GNF in their bank account and another 600,000 GNF ready to be deposited.

From the income earned, the cooperative reinvests in buying additional crops, shares some of the profit for their own personal needs, and put the remaining balance in their cooperative’s bank account. The women previously worked with the “federation paysanne,” but are now leveraging the talents of one woman’s bookkeeping skills to manage their finances independently.

Four growing seasons of experience has lead to the cooperatives’ creation of a working schedule that achieves both their cultivation and lifestyle goals. Three days a week, they gather early in the morning to work together in the fields. While most of women are in the field, they designate two women to cook a meal for the entire team and their families.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4eFScPbpZE?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0&w=640&h=360]

A major setback occurred last season when, due to heavy rain, their entire agricultural production was lost. The ramifications of the lost crops meant that the group lost food sources and income. Yet, the major outcome was that it reinforced the cooperative’s mission. They realized that by working and saving money together, what could have been devastating losses to individuals was just a small setback for the larger team. 

Supporting Health Workers at the Frontline of Disease Outbreak Prevention

November is typically a time of remembrance. Here in Sierra Leone, the memories hit close to home as the country marked the one year anniversary of the end of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak. The resilience of the local communities is represented in the high EVD survival rates and support from government and partner organizations.

The EVD outbreak was characterized by acute challenges in field epidemiology, disease management, and disease control. Health worker education, training, and capacity building is one component essential to establishing holistic and effective disease management.

eHA Sierra Leone (eHA-SL) organizes rolling field epidemiology training programs (FETP) for district surveillance officers (DSOs) across the country. Through the support of funding from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the FETP program is hosted by the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) and facilitated by African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET) experts.

Every three months, the Frontline FETP trains new groups of approximately 20 public health staff in disease surveillance best practices. Participants are geographically diverse, and include participation from the national level and all 14 districts. From routine health data collection and recognition of exceptional symptoms to developing case profiles using the 5Ws (Who, What, When, Where, Why) and creating action plans, the surveillance officers are oriented and guided through data-driven decision making.

The programs includes three months of classroom sessions and field-level application. Following two weeks of workshop sessions, up to nine weeks are spent conducting field projects which enables students to practice, implement, and reinforce what they have learned. These projects include creating reports with summary tables and charts of the surveillance data routinely collected at their particular agencies. In addition, DSOs conduct monitoring, evaluation, and feedback of surveillance activities at various health reporting sites. They also have the opportunity to perform a health problem analysis and participating in a mock case or outbreak investigation.

By the end of the quarter, the DSOs are well positioned to engage in more informed practice and decision-making to investigate, identify, and thwart future disease threats. Due to the rolling nature of the program, eHA and partners are able to train public health staff from across the country regularly. With this momentum in health worker training, over the next year the fortitude and capability of the health workforce will expand to champion disease outbreak in the Sierra Leone.