Cold Chain Status and Knowledge of Vaccine Providers at Primary Health Care of Units Bale Zone, Southeast Ethiopia: Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Despite of long history of Expand program of immunization service delivery and most countries in the world achieved immunization coverage of around 90% for DPT3 in 2010, still there is child mortality attributed to vaccine preventable disease which accounts 29% of world-wide. This problem is attributed to reduced vaccine potency due to failure in cold chain monitoring system. Cold chain monitoring is still a major challenge in developing countries including Ethiopia. The aim of this study was to assess cold chain status and knowledge of vaccine providers at primary health care units.

Knowledge, attitude and practice of vaccinators and vaccine handlers on vaccine cold chain management in public health facilities, Ethiopia: Cross-sectional study

“…Only 24.4% of vaccinators and vaccine handlers received cold chain management-related training while just 27.6% got supervised on cold chain management. This was comparable with previous studies done in the past where the proportion of respondents not trained were 66.8% in central Ethiopia [ 28 ] and 78.1% in the Bale zone [ 18 ]. This was much lower than studies in Nigeria (65.0%) [ 14 ] and Brazil (91.3%) [ 29 ].…”

“…Regarding the frequency of temperature recording, 83.5% was correctly described in the present study. This was in line with findings in the Guragie zone, where 83.6% of health workers knew the frequency of temperature recordings [ 28 ], but 1.44 fold higher (57.9%) than respondents in the Bale zone [ 18 ] and central Ethiopia [ 20 ]. On the other hand, the correct placement of the thermometer was mentioned by15% in the current study and the result was much lower than Brazil (69%) [ 29 ].…”

“…The recommended range of temperature for vaccines was correctly responded by 96.9% in this study. This was comparable with a study done in central Ethiopia, where 78.4% responded correctly [ 20 ] but 1.42 (67.8%) and 1.35 (71.1%) times higher than those in Bale [ 18 ] and Guragie zone [ 28 ] respectively. Another study in Nigeria [ 30 ] and Mozambique [ 12 ] also reported that nearly half of the respondents (52.1%) knew the optimal vaccine storage temperature.…”

“…Also in other previous studies, 272 (64.0%) personnel in Nigeria were found to have poor knowledge [ 16 ] and 7 (28.3%) personnels in Cameroon did not know the correct vaccine storage temperature [ 17 ]. About 124 (67.8%) vaccine providers in South Ethiopia responded correctly to the recommended range of temperature for storage vaccine [ 18 ] and 84% of health workers in Nigeria had good knowledge of vaccine vial monitor (VVM) [ 19 ].…”

Assessment of Factors Affecting Vaccine Cold Chain Management Practice in Bahir Dar City Health Institutions, 2019

“…Only 28.6% of the health facility which had proper vaccine cold chain management practice. This finding is very low when compare with study done in Saudi, Nigeria and Ethiopia 90%, 66.1%, 58.3% and 67.8% of the facility had appropriate vaccine cold chain management practice [1,8,19,25,26]. The possible reason for this gap is in adequacy and unavailability of the equipment and infrastructure that is important to the good management practice of cold chain.…”