LOOK AT THIS IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN:
Understanding the additional operational costs of an immunization campaign held during the COVID-19 pandemic due to service modifications to keep health workers and communities safe.
HOW YOU CAN USE THIS MATERIAL:
If you are considering conducting an immunization campaign, you can use these findings to estimate the additional costs required to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission.
OVERVIEW:
This analysis estimates the potential additional operational cost of an immunization campaign held during the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers, from ThinkWell, estimated the added cost per dose of several potential precautionary measures: personal protective equipment (PPE) for vaccination teams, additional infection prevention and control (IPC) measures at immunization sites, extra staff and supplies to ensure physical distancing and triaging at campaign sites, additional per diems due to potential changes in delivery strategies, and estimates of an increase of other operational cost components (such as additional social mobilization and training).
Key Points:
- Offering handwashing stations and hand sanitizer at campaign sites could increase the operational cost of a campaign by US$0.01-0.10 per dose, adding masks would increase this to US$0.02-0.21 per dose and up to US$0.32 per dose if teams wear gloves and vaccinators wear goggles as well.
- Adding two team members to a vaccination team (high intensity) could increase the operational cost of the campaign by US$0.02-0.47, reflecting an increase in the operational cost of approximately 26%.
- If campaigns would take twice as long to complete (high intensity), the additional expenses on health worker per diems alone could already increase the operational cost of the campaign by 32%.
- If expenses on social mobilization activities, training, transport, communication and microplanning were to increase by 25% (low intensity), the cost of the campaign would increase by 10% or approximately 40% if they were to double.
- If hand sanitizer and basic handwashing stations are put in place at vaccination sites, one extra crowd controller is added to vaccination teams, daily coverage targets are reduced to 80% and other operational costs were to increase by 25%, this could increase the operational cost per dose by 49%.