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In Kenya, efforts to reach underserved children in the last years have not shown impressive results. Despite having remained around 80%, national immunization coverage stagnated and disaggregated data revealed disparities among provinces and districts.
In 2009, the Reaching Every District (RED) strategy was implemented in Nyanza and Western provinces, with prioritization of seven districts that contributed the largest number of unreached children for vaccination. Within these districts, support was intensified to health facilities that contributed 80% of the unreached children. A package of RED components was implemented, focusing on promoting partnership between health workers and communities, to improve utilization of immunization services and health worker capacity to use program data for planning and decision making.
As a result, measles vaccine coverage in 2010 improved and the absolute number of unreached children reduced significantly in all seven districts, compared to 2009. Implementation of the RED approach has shown to reduce the number of unvaccinated children by targeting the most disadvantaged communities. To ensure sustainability of these gains, vaccine stocks must be maintained and local resources mobilized in most disadvantaged areas.
NEW VACCINE INTRODUCTION
Kenya introduced the ten-valent pneumococcal vaccine (PCV10) into the infant immunization schedule in 2011, receiving high community acceptance and increased demand for immunization services for children under-one year of age. Introducing PCV10 provided an opportunity to reach drop-outs and missed children; in addition to comprehensively addressing the global action plan for prevention and control of pneumonia (GAPP), galvanizing support from both partners and government.
New vaccine introduction provides the opportunity to improve immunization systems and coverage and galvanize support for vaccinations and other preventive health services. A key lesson learned was stocks for all vaccines should be at maximum to cover the 3-month period after launch to meet demand and avoid stock outs for all antigens.
Learning Objectives: TBD