Effect of Vaccine Direct Delivery (VDD) on Vaccine Stock Outs and Number of Vaccinations: Case Study from Bauchi State, Nigeria

Ryoko Sato, Harvard School of Public Health
Adam Thomson, eHealth Africa
Loveth Metiboba, eHealth Africa
Vivian Odezugo, eHealth Africa

Vaccine stockouts are prevalent in Africa. We causally evaluated the effect of Vaccine Direct Delivery (VDD), an intervention to ensure the vaccine-stock availability at health facilities, on the reduction of stockouts in Bauchi state, Nigeria. Employing the interrupted time-series method, we evaluated the change in the occurrence of vaccine stockouts before and after the introduction of VDD in July 2015. We used health-facility level data from January 2013 to December 2018 among 175 facilities in Bauchi state, collected through the District Health Information Software 2, for monthly information on stockouts and stock balance in all the health facilities in Nigeria. After the introduction of VDD, vaccine stockouts in Bauchi state decreased by 9 percentage points on average. The stock balance of target vaccines all increased but we did not observe an increase in the number of vaccinations carried out. More effort should be channeled into creating a demand for vaccines.