Poster 9
Title / Description
Strengthening Uganda’s national cold chain inventory data system (61)
Vaccine cold chains are the backbone of immunization systems. Ensuring cold chain equipment remains functional is key to achieving equitable, accessible, and effective delivery of life-saving vaccines. An up-to-date cold chain equipment (CCE) inventory is crucial to the effective management and overall functionality of the cold chain. For many countries, paper-based systems have been used for CCE inventory management. These inventories are sporadically updated, costly to complete, and data sets are often incomplete or fraught with inconsistencies and data quality issues. Furthermore, the simple fact that most CCE are equipment that require maintenance and face functionality issues means that point in time snapshots of inventories become quickly outdated. Uganda’s National Program for Immunization (UNEPI) and National Medical Store (NMS) piloted and scaled a digital solution to update and manage CCE across the country. This system, called the Cold Chain Information System (CCIS), is built on the ODK-X software platform. The application allows users from national supervisors to district cold chain technicians to review, update, and share key CCE data via Android devices. The system functions “offline”, allowing user the ability to log and save data when out of wifi aor cellular service range. Once back in network service areas, users are able to sync data to centralized servers and databases. The app is designed to collect data across several important areas: updating the CCE inventory, capturing maintenance and repair logs (including spare parts), and collecting CCE temperature data. Data on these three areas are used by national managers and DCCTs to (a) ensure cold chain equipment in Uganda remain functional and (b) provide insights to support data analysis for CCE procurement planning. Both which are critical for Uganda to have a feasible National Cold Chain Rehabilitation plan that ensures the country achieve its sustainable goals in immunization.
Authors
Jacqueline Anena1, Jimmy Ameny2, Brian Michael Kigozi3
1PATH, 2Ministry of Health, Uganda, 3National Medical Stores-Uganda
