The Effect of Implementing Advanced Strategies to Improve Immunization Coverage in the Elogbele Health Area

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Vaccination is a key component of primary healthcare, preventing millions of deaths each year. Therefore, this study aims to explore the impact of advanced vaccination strategies on enhancing immunization coverage in the Elogbele health area from January to May 2023. METHODS: We conducted this retrospective study in the Elogbele health area in the Edea health district, Littoral, Cameroon. We extracted the variables for the number of vaccinated children from the vaccination and tally registers of the area's health facilities and analyzed them using Microsoft Excel 2016 (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, USA). RESULTS: The activities carried out in the area led to a clear improvement in the number of vaccinated children with Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) (14 vs. 15), measles rubella vaccine first dose (MR 1) (16 vs. 89), pentavalent vaccine first dose (PENTA 1) (9 vs. 103), and pentavalent vaccine third dose (PENTA 3) (13 vs. 130), as well as in their BCG (2.31% vs. 2.47%), MR 1 (2.82% vs. 15.67%), PENTA 1 (1.58% vs. 18.13%), and PENTA 3 (2.29% vs. 22.89%) vaccination coverage. CONCLUSION: This study has demonstrated the importance of implementing advanced strategies and enabled health workers in the Elogbele health area to strengthen their immunization capabilities, improve immunization coverage, and catch up with the number of unimmunized children.