Lecturer of Clinical Trials Bule Hora University Bule Hora University Bule Hora, Ethiopia
Background: Vast novel method of enhanced AEFI surveillance has been practiced globally. However, with those methods had serious limitations including the requirement of high resource and expertise, and the fact that the focus involves vaccine recipients predominantly. Hence, there is a need to find the most flexible low cost and integrated AEFI surveillance system.
Objectives: To determine response rate of SMS based participant centered active surveillance for adverse event following immunization.
Methods: Pub-med, Google scholars were searched for articles until October 10, 2021. The search was limited to articles published in English language. The protocol is registered on PROSPERO with identification number of CRD42021282618. All authors were independently performed study selection and data extraction from selected studies based on prespecified criteria. Those studies whose Participants were care giver or parents enrolled to active surveillance on AEFI using SMS / text messaging and report the response rate as an outcome were included. All statistical analyses were performed using R version 4.0.3 software. A meta-analysis with random-effects of DerSimonian-Laird estimator approach for proportion was performed to determine response rate with a 95% confidence interval (CI). I2 were used to evaluate the statistical heterogeneity and Eggers tests to explore publication bias.
Results: Eighteen out of 63 studies were included in the meta-analysis. The result of meta-analysis revealed that 78.19% [78.19; 95% CI (76.33-79.95)] reporting rate was achieved through SMS based active surveillance. There was considerable heterogeneity among included studies(I2=99%). The result of Egger’s test revealed that there was no significant publication bias (P-value= 0.096).
Conclusions: High response rate were achieved through SMS based active surveillance. However, the included study may not be representative because of lack of studies in some continents. There is a need to study this further in low- and middle-income countries such as Africa to re-confirm the feasibility of SMS based active AEFI surveillance.
