Govt ready with SMS-based vaccine monitoring system

NEW DELHI: When inspecting officials visited Faridpur community health centre near Bareilly, UP for a surprise check in June last year, they were shocked to find country-made liquor bottles stocked in the freezer instead of polio vaccines which--left outside--had become unfit for use.

When reports of the incident reached Delhi, it led to serious concerns because such incidents have the potential to damage the government's most ambitious health programme - Mission Indradhanush - especially in states like UP and Bihar which continue to be poor performers despite adequate funding and dedicated resources. Modernization and real-time monitoring of vaccine cold chains across the country was essential and the only solution in hand.

The health ministry is now set to implement what it designed in the last six months following the Faridpur incident. By adopting SMS-based monitoring and electronic vaccine intelligence network ( eVIN), officials sitting at the Centre will be able to manage vaccine movement, consumption and availability.


The project was initially adopted on a pilot scale in two districts of UP itself. Now, the ministry is working with international agencies like Gavi and Unicef to adopt the technology across the country and connect all vaccine cold chains through it.

“This represents a bold new approach. We are working with the government to modernize the cold-chain equipment and information systems, in managing vaccine supply chains,” Gavi chief executive Seth Berkley said.

Under the project, the government has started distributing mobile devices or electronic monitoring machines at health centres and to health workers involved in the immunization programme. These health workers are trained to feed into the gazette real-time data which includes information about supply, consumption, expiry dates and quality of vaccines. Such information is fed into the system at all levels of the vaccine supply chain. On the other end, the information is collected by a central cell, which collates and analyzes all the data for the ministry.

According to an official in the ministry, the real-time data monitoring will also help in ascertaining the demand and supply gap and hence ensure no shortage of vaccines in any area.

“The technology of the SMS-based monitoring system and Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network could help improve vaccine supply chains, increasing immunization coverage and equity,” Berkley said.

However, Berkley insists the government will also have to address other challenges like scarcity of healthcare workers, coordination with states, language barriers, absence of regulator site inspections and financial constraints to pull through these programmes.

Estimates show that India would need around $600 million every year to pull off its national immunization programme without international funding support. While currently the government is collaborating with several agencies to garner enough funds to achieve its ambitious target to immunize 90% of infants by 2020, soon India may have to transition out of international funding and support the immunization drive by itself.

Global agencies often fund programmes to a certain level till the indigenous system is strengthened. Many funding agencies have already indicated that India’s immunization programme will start its transition around 2017 and depending on the economics of the country, the funding may be withdrawn by 2021.

Though the health ministry is working full strength to expand the vaccine coverage as well as introduce new vaccines to ramp up the programme, experts say the government needs to give immediate focus on ramping up health spend if it is serious in achieving and sustaining its targets.