Hello Santos, I understand your concerns. In Côte d'Ivoire, a mass campaign was planned in November 2017 with the measles and rubella vaccine and its introduction into the routine EPI in January 2018. For administrative reasons the campaign was not carried out at the end of the year. We have introduced the measles and rubella vaccine in January 2018 and the campaign started on January 26 and will end on February 4, 2018. In August 2017 we made an inventory of all stocks of vaccines including measles vaccine. Then at the end of each month this vaccine was monitored using SIG Inventory and eDVDMT at the national level and the district staffing was adapted to the measles vaccine so that by 31 December 2017 there was only small amounts of measles vaccine (5 vials) even no vials of measles vaccine in some districts. All districts were provided with measles and rubella vaccine in December 2017 to make it available at all levels so that by 02 January 2018 all health centers had measles and rubella vaccine and started to vaccinate with this new vaccine. Currently we are making the catch-up campaign for children aged 9 months to 14 years. Finally, I can say that good planning and good vaccine management are needed to get there. Sincerely, Ruth

Hello Ruth, 

Thank you very much,

It was great to hear this great experience that happened in Ivory Coast, they are to be congratulated for having been able to introduce MR without problems. Really good planning and good management, are very important aspects in the organization of these processes.

We have already introduced several new vaccines, we have already done vaccine swaps, with no problem in previous years. But this time we had a management error, we could not cancel the last batch of measles vaccine for the country and we simultaneously received the vaccine for Measles and Rubella Campaign.

But we will try to do our best to manage the two vaccines.

Once again, Thanks for the support.

Santos

Do the MR campaign in Phased manner which will help you to utilize all the pipeline stock. In the mean time plan for MR vaccine indent state-wise + std. 10% wastage +buffer. You can utilize left over measles stock after campaign in 1st dose and 2nd dose with MR vaccine. Any doubt in planning may convey to me I will help because i m doing same things in national level at central govt. of india.

GANGADHAR!
Thanks for the support, it is a good idea, I will submit to the National Technical group for the final decision.

Thank You
Santos

Dear Santos,

Cameroon has introduced Measles and Rubella vaccines in 2015. We have started by doing a campaign nationally. As you can imagine, it was not easy, because after the campaign, we have brought back all the MR vaccines in the central and regional levels stores after doing an inventory. The idea was that we have a huge amount of measles vaccines acroos the country and we did not need to lose them. So the introduction of MR did not happen at the same time at all levels and all the health facilities. When a site had used all the measles vaccines, we started to deliver MR vaccine. At the end, it was difficult to identify how many doses of Measles or MR have been used at a given period of time.

So for me, the great challenge for you will be data management and planification