https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0786-9107
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ABSTRACT
Objectives
To boost COVID-19 vaccine uptake, an innovative ‘vaccinate my village’ (VMV) strategy using door-to-door vaccination by Health Surveillance Assistants (HSA) was adopted. In this study, we assessed the impact of the ‘vaccinate my village’ strategy on COVID-19 vaccine uptake.
Methods
This was a cross-sectional review of the data on COVID-19 vaccination obtained from the Ministry of Health, Malawi, from 11 March 2021 to September 2022.
Results
From March 2021–4 September 2022,091,551 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered, out of which 2,253,546 were administered over just six months as a part of VMV as compared to 1,838,005 doses were administered over 13 months as a part of other strategies. The proportion of Malawi’s population receiving at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine increased substantially from 4.66 to 15.4 with the implementation of the VMV strategy (p = 0.0001). District-wise coverage of the COVID-19 vaccine also increased significantly after its implementation (p = 0.0001).
Conclusions
Door-to-door vaccination involving HSAs benefitted the COVID-19 vaccination program in Malawi by ensuring accessibility, availability, and acceptability.
Declaration of interest
The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or material discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or mending, or royalties.
Reviewer disclosures
Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.
Data sharing
Data will be made available on request to the corresponding author.
Ethics
This study was exempted from the scientific and ethical review by National Health Sciences Research Committee, Malawi, given data evaluation from the ministry (MED/4/36c dated 21 November 2022).
Author contributions
GS, MNC, LS, PON, BL, KCM, TD, and JP were involved in the implementation and monitoring of the project. LS, SS, and KJ were involved in data analysis. SS, LS, KJ, and KD initially drafted the manuscript. GS, LS, and KD edited the manuscript. All authors have reviewed and approved the final manuscript.