Vietnam's vaccination initiative wins US$400,000 prize

The pilot vaccination management software initiative in Ben Tre province was awarded the "Innovation in Health Care" award this year.

PATH Vietnam's immunization management software initiative was awarded the 3rd Healthcare Innovation Award.DThis is a system that brings vaccination records into digital technology, piloted in Ben Tre province. Instead of keeping handwritten records that can be time-consuming and error-prone, medical staff in Ben Tre province use computers or smartphones to monitor vaccine stocks; register pregnant women and newborns; and track vaccinations given.Through text messages, health workers remind mothers to vaccinate themselves and their children.

Currently, commune health station staff usually have to write and deliver vaccination invitations to pregnant women and mothers in the area.

Sharing at the award ceremony on March 8, Ms. Nguyen Tuyet Nga, representative of PATH Vietnam, said that thanks to this system, the rate of full vaccination of children in the first year of life in Ben Tre increased from 74% to nearly 78% in a year of testing. The rate of vaccination on schedule for vaccines also increased by 10-14%.

Gunnar Andersen, Country Director of Save the Children in Vietnam, said that this initiative is an innovative intervention that has the potential to save many children's lives. The system can be expanded and replicated to help protect many more children at risk of infection. It is estimated that globally, about 6 million children die from preventable diseases every year.

According to Dr. Tran Dac Phu, Director of the Department of Preventive Medicine (Ministry of Health), after 30 years of implementing the Expanded Immunization Program, hundreds ofMillions of doses of vaccines are given free of charge to children to prevent 12 dangerous infectious diseases. Managing vaccination targets plays an important role in accurately assessing vaccination rates, thereby enhancing community immunity.

Currently, the migration in big cities, the management of vaccination subjects is handled by many agencies, the traditional method of handwriting, books for management, especially service vaccination has revealed many limitations. Therefore, the management agency cannot calculate the exact vaccination rate, cannot predict the demand for vaccines, leading to local shortages, not reaching the vaccination rate...Therefore, in the near future, the Ministry of Health will coordinate with PATH to widely deploy this vaccination management software.

Prize ""Innovation in Health Care" 3rd timeOne million USD worth of prizes were awarded to four initiatives, of which Vietnam's initiative received 400,000 USD.The three other innovations honored this time are a tool to monitor and inspect child deaths in African hospitals; a small bag that delivers precision HIV treatment to newborns in Ecuador; and a program that provides prenatal and postnatal care to mothers and children in rural Kenya.

According to VNE