Introduction the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) global pandemic has caused serious disruption to almost all aspect of human endeavor forcing countries to implement unprecedented public health measures aimed at mitigating its effects, such as total lockdown (inter and intra), travel bans, quarantine, social distancing in an effort to contain the spread of the virus. Supportive supervision is a functional component of the immunization systems that allows identification of existing gaps, provides an opportunity for onsite training, and document real-time findings for improvement of the program. The control measures of COVID-19 pandemic have also resulted in limitation of operations of the immunization system including supportive supervision. This has limited many aspects of supportive supervision for surveillance and routine immunization monitoring system in the East and Southern African countries. The aim of this study is to identify the effects of COVID-19 on Integrated Supportive Supervision visits for expanded programme on immunization (EPI) and how it influences the immunization and vaccine preventable disease (VPD) surveillance indicators, and its short-term effect towards notification of increase or decrease morbidity and mortality. Methods we reviewed the integrated supportive supervision (ISS) data and the routine administrative coverage from 19 countries in the East and Southern Africa (ESA) for the period January to August 2019 to analyze the trends in the number of visits, vaccine-preventable diseases (VPD), and routine immunization (RI) indicators using t-test, and compare with the period January to August 2020 during the months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results thirteen countries out of the 19 considered, had shown a decline in the number of integrated supportive supervision (ISS) visits, with 10 (77%) having more than 59% decrease during the January-August 2020 as compared to the same period 2019. Eleven (57%) of the countries have shown a decrease (p-value < 0.05). Ethiopia and Kenya had the highest drop (p-value < 0.000). Six (32%) had an increase in the number of visits, with Madagascar, Zambia, and Zimbabwe having >100% increase in the number of visits. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of the countries that have decreased in the number of ISS visits have equally witnessed a drop in DPT3 administrative coverage. Countries with a low proportion of outreach sessions conducted in the period of January - August 2020, have all had sessions interruption, with more than 40% of the reasons associated with the lockdown. Conclusion countries have experienced a decrease in the number of supportive supervision visits conducted, during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic and, this has influenced the routine immunization and vaccine-preventable diseases surveillance (VPD) process indicators monitored through the conduct of the visits. Continuous decrease in these performance indicators pose a great threat to the per...

Background The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Africa is an urgent public health crisis. Estimated models projected over 150,000 deaths and 4,600,000 hospitalizations in the first year of the disease in the absence of adequate interventions. Therefore, electronic contact tracing and surveillance have critical roles in decreasing COVID-19 transmission; yet, if not conducted properly, these methods can rapidly become a bottleneck for synchronized data collection, case detection, and case management. While the continent is currently reporting relatively low COVID-19 cases, digitized contact tracing mechanisms and surveillance reporting are necessary for standardizing real-time reporting of new chains of infection in order to quickly reverse growing trends and halt the pandemic. Objective This paper aims to describe a COVID-19 contact tracing smartphone app that includes health facility surveillance with a real-time visualization platform. The app was developed by the AFRO (African Regional Office) GIS (geographic information system) Center, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) emergency preparedness and response team. The app was developed through the expertise and experience gained from numerous digital apps that had been developed for polio surveillance and immunization via the WHO’s polio program in the African region. Methods We repurposed the GIS infrastructures of the polio program and the database structure that relies on mobile data collection that is built on the Open Data Kit. We harnessed the technology for visualization of real-time COVID-19 data using dynamic dashboards built on Power BI, ArcGIS Online, and Tableau. The contact tracing app was developed with the pragmatic considerations of COVID-19 peculiarities. The app underwent testing by field surveillance colleagues to meet the requirements of linking contacts to cases and monitoring chains of transmission. The health facility surveillance app was developed from the knowledge and assessment of models of surveillance at the health facility level for other diseases of public health importance. The Integrated Supportive Supervision app was added as an appendage to the pre-existing paper-based surveillance form. These two mobile apps collected information on cases and contact tracing, alongside alert information on COVID-19 reports at the health facility level; the information was linked to visualization platforms in order to enable actionable insights. Results The contact tracing app and platform were piloted between April and June 2020; they were then put to use in Zimbabwe, Benin, Cameroon, Uganda, Nigeria, and South Sudan, and their use has generated some palpable successes with respect to COVID-19 surveillance. However, the COVID-19 health facility–based surveillance app has been used more extensively, as it has been used in 27 countries in the region. Conclusions In light of the above information, this paper was written to give an overview of the app and visualization platform development, app and platform deployment, ease of replicability, and preliminary outcome evaluation of their use in the field. From a regional perspective, integration of contact tracing and surveillance data into one platform provides the AFRO with a more accurate method of monitoring countries’ efforts in their response to COVID-19, while guiding public health decisions and the assessment of risk of COVID-19.

Introduction the use of digital health technologies and geographical information systems (GIS) in the conduct of immunization campaigns had proven to be a success story, and is gaining acceptance towards improving supervision, accountability, and real-time access to quality information. The demand for real-time information by policymakers and stakeholders in the polio eradication programme is increasing towards ensuring a world free from all polioviruses. This study aims to develop a tool that monitor and evaluate the circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) campaign processes in real-time using open data kits (ODK) to collect data, analyze and visualize using an interactive dashboard in Power BI, towards improving timeliness and completeness of data reporting and providing real-time quality information to stakeholders. Methods electronic checklists were developed using open data kits (ODK) and uploaded onto android-based smartphones for data collection during a round of cVDPV outbreak response immunization. Supervisors were deployed to the field and the checklists were utilized at both stages of the campaign activities. A Power BI data visualization tool was used for reporting, analysis, and monitoring the activities of the campaign. Results an interactive dashboard was developed, providing real-time information that supports stakeholders during the campaign processes with improved timeliness and completeness of data reporting. The usage of the tool during the campaign enhanced close supervision, and increased transparency in data availability and accessibility by all partners. Conclusion the study had shown that real-time information has significantly improved the smooth conduct of the immunization campaign processes through identifying gaps, and challenges in the field and can be utilized in similar resource settings including complex and humanitarian. It has demonstrated the capability of mobile phones using ODK for data collection and linked to a Power BI dashboard for enhanced supervision and transparency, and we encourage further studies to assess the effects of the tools on the campaign results.

Mobile phone data collection tools are increasingly becoming very usable collecting, collating and analysing data in the health sector. In this paper, we documented the experiences with mobile phone data collection, collation and analysis in 5 countries of the East and Southern African, using Open Data Kit (ODK), where questionnaires were designed and coded on an XML form, uploaded and data collected using Android-Based mobile phones, with a web-based system to monitor data in real-time during EPI comprehensive review. The ODK interface supports in real-time monitoring of the flow of data, detection of missing or incomplete data, coordinate location of all locations visited, embedded charts for basic analysis. It also minimized data quality errors at entry level with the use of validation codes and constraint developed into the checklist. These benefits, combined with the improvement that mobile phones offer over paper-based in terms of timeliness, data loss, collation, and real-time data collection, analysis and uploading difficulties, make mobile phone data collection a feasible method of data collection that needs to be further explored in the conduct of all surveys in the organization.

Introduction the new coronavirus (COVID-19) that emerged from Wuhan, Hubei Province of China in December 2019, causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has fast spread across the entire globe, with most countries struggling to slow and reduce the spread of the virus through rapid screening, testing, isolation, case management, contact tracing, implementing social distancing and lockdowns. This has been shown to be a major factor in countries that have been successful in containing COVID-19 transmission. Early detection of cases is important, and the use of geospatial technology can support to detect and easily identify potential hotspots that will require timely response. The use of spatial analysis with geographic information systems (GIS) had proved to be effective in providing timely and effective solutions in supporting epidemic response and pandemics over the years. It has developed and evolved rapidly with a complete technological tool for representing data, model construction, visualization and platform construction among others. Methods we conducted a geospatial analysis to develop a web mapping application using ArcMap and ArcGIS online to guide and support active case search of potential COVID-19 cases, within 500m radius of COVID-19 confirmed cases to improve detection and testing of suspected cases. Results the web mapping application tool guides the active case search teams in the field, with clear boundaries on the houses to be visited within 500-meter radius of confirmed positive cases, to conduct active case search of all cases of severe acute respiratory illnesses (SARI), acute respiratory illnesses (ARI), pneumonia etc, to detect and test for COVID-19 towards containing the pandemic. Conclusion the use of GIS and spatial statistical tools have become an important and valuable tool in decision-making and, more importantly, guiding health care professional and other stakeholders in the response being carried out in a more coherent and easy manner. It has proven to be effective in supporting the active case search process to rapidly detect, test and isolate cases during the process, towards containing the COVID-19 pandemic.