Abstract:
Background: vaccines offer arguably the most cost-effective public health intervention in modern medicine. Despite the heavy global and local efforts toward achieving effective vaccination coverage, challenges still exist that present barriers to achieving this target. Vaccine supply chain management which is a critical building block to achieving this desired coverage target faces many Human resources challenges mainly due to the special attributes of vaccines.
Objective: This study attempted to measure the effectiveness of the efforts to improve the
knowledge and skills of cold chain handlers to influence positively their practices.
Method: The study adopted a cross-sectional research design and employed predominantly
quantitative data collection techniques to obtain rich data. Facilities that have offered vaccination
services for more than a year and report through the HMIS system were eligible for selection to
participate in the study. Observation checklists and structured questionnaires were used to extract
data which was analyzed into results that were interpreted to draw conclusions.
Results: Vaccine cold chain management among the study group had an average score of 65.33% with a maximum score of 85% and a minimum of 31%, on aggregate, the average knowledge score among the study respondents was 62.42% with a minimum score of 45 and a maximum score of 95%, and The knowledge of respondents was found to generally increase with an additional increase in the number of training modalities
Conclusion and recommendation. The status of VCCM is at about 65.33% below the target of 80% set by the EVM assessment manual therefore more efforts are needed to achieve the set target. The trainings have an effect on both knowledge of handlers and their practice especially when deployed in a multi-pronged design and thus these trainings need to be aligned to achieve synergy
