Among the factors contributing the child survival in Nepal, successful delivery of vaccines is essential to prevent deaths and disability due to disease. However, the constrains still remains in terms of the scare human resources unable to cope up with the new requirement for temperature sensitive vaccines, and also to the cold chain equipment which needs maintenance and repair on a periodic basis, real time information on the equipment status and stock management of the vaccines.
The Program Cooperation Agreement (PCA) has been developed between UNICEF Nepal and Lifeline Nepal to provide a joint technical assistance to Ministry of Health and Population harnessing the individual capacity on improving the efficiency of supply chain management (SCM), strengthening the vaccine information system (VIM) and human resource for vaccine management (HRVM).
The major objective of Unicef/Lifeline Nepal PCA is to conduct following activities for improvement of the score in EVM assessment, 2016;
- Distribution, installation and preventive maintenance of the cold chain equipment in 45 districts
- Auctioning of non-functional cold chain equipment, spare parts, expired vaccines from all over Nepal
- Repair and maintenance of cold chain equipment focusing on earthquake affected districts and all over the country
- Capacity building of the immunization and supply chain officer and staff on EVM SOP
- Develop real time monitoring system of the vaccine inventory as well as cold chain equipment
- Quality improvement process introduced and implemented in the central, regional and district vaccine stores
- Immunization and supply chain for vaccine and cold chain equipment strengthened on 22 earthquake affected districts
- Capacity building of refrigerator technicians on repair and maintenance of equipment
- On-site mentoring to the immunization and cold chain officers on improving vaccine management practices