phd scholar JSS College of pharmacy, Mysuru, India Mysuru, India, India
Background: This COVID-19 pandemic had created many holes in the existing medical and public health programmes. In a middle-income country like India where the infant mortality rate and under-5 mortality rate still remain high, any decrease in the utilization pattern of childhood vaccination will create dangerous social problems. During this recovery phase of the pandemic, an immediate check over this situation is urgent and this study tries to identify those gaps by implementing an immunization registry.
Objectives: To compare the utilization patterns during the three phases of the pandemic (ie, pre, post and during the pandemic) and to identify the gaps created by the pandemic. The study implements an immunization registry as a post-pandemic intervention to recover from the negative shades of the pandemic.
Methods: The study was conducted as a longitudinal observational study, where three phases of the pandemic (pre, during and post-pandemic) and the vaccine utilization patterns were analysed and compared. A total of five years of vaccine utilization patterns were included in the study to identify the pandemic's impact. The pre-pandemic details were retrieved from previous manual registries of the study site. After the implementation of the digital registry, during each visit of vaccine beneficiaries details such as their vaccine utilization patterns, timeliness and medical history were updated in the database.
Results: Overall, a 58.45% reduction in childhood vaccine utilization can be observed between pre and inter-pandemic periods. While an increased utilization of optional vaccines can be observed in the post-pandemic phase. Gender inequality (male predominance) in optional vaccine utilization remains an alarming social factor. A total of 25.67% missing vaccine schedules, 38.78% delayed vaccinations, and 46.33% underweight / low nutritional status was observed during the pandemic. Post-pandemic phase significant reduction in missing schedules (2.67%), and delayed vaccination (7.65%) was tracked out.
Conclusions: This study could effectively compare the gaps created by the COVID-19 pandemic over the utilization of childhood immunization in a south Indian community. At the same time, the study could able to show-up the scope of digital registries in a middle-income country, especially at this crucial point of time.
