Residents of remote, rural areas of Sierra Leone faced severe difficulties when accessing COVID-19 vaccination. To address this, researchers from the University of Oxford, Yale University, and Wageningen University and Research, in partnership with the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) and the international non-governmental organization Concern Worldwide, implemented a last-mile delivery intervention of doses and health professionals to the most inaccessible areas, along with community mobilization.
A cluster randomized controlled trial in 150 communities showed that this intervention with mobile vaccination teams increased the immunization rate by about 26 percentage points within 48–72 h. Moreover, auxiliary populations visited the community vaccination points, which more than doubled the number of inoculations administered. The additional people vaccinated per intervention site translated to an implementation cost of US $33 per person vaccinated, largely accounted for by transportation costs to reach remote villages.
Image credit: Michael Duff https://www.duff.tv/home
Any organization or individual working in the field of immunization economics can submit findings, opportunities, calls to action, or other relevant work below to be shared with our community.