The Ministry of health Sri Lanka deployed its COVID 19 vaccine tracker based on the DHIS2 platform on 28th January 2021. The system which was developed with technical inputs from the WHO country office and HISP Sri Lanka was integrated as a parallel module to the national COVID-19 surveillance system.
The system consist of two core modules.
- Immunisation tracker
the immunisation tracker is based on a customised DHIS2 tracker component which is aimed at registering sociodemographic factors, comorbidities and allergies at time of registration. The registered persons follows three stages during its enrolment at the vaccination tracker program. There are two separate stages for first and second doses in which vaccination specific information are captured. In addition, there is a separate stage to capture information related to adverse events following immunisation (AEFI). The entire adult population of 16 million persons were preregistered in to the system to expedite data entry at vaccination centres.
- Stock monitoring system
the stock monitoring system is a simple aggregate module which captures stock received, issued and utilisation at national, regional and vaccine centre level. It utilises predictors for calculations across period dimensions
Based on the data that is captured in the two modules, dashboards are designed to provide rich analysis for stakeholders at national, regional and vaccine centre level.
Custom Development for Vaccination Certificate
The initial version comprised of an immunisation tracker and a stock monitoring module was based on customised tracker and aggregate components of DHIS2. The system was later refined to incorporate vaccine certificate with QR integrations and SMS notification functionality. Standard Tracker Capture app was modified to include a widget that included options to generate the digital certificate with QR code, print the certificate as we all send SMS notifications. The vaccination certificate is available for print, download as well as remote verification by authorised parties.
The system was ready by the time the country received the first stock of COVISHIELD vaccine on 29 January 2021. The system was deployed at all vaccination centres around the country including the vaccination centres run by the security forces. During the initial phase of implementation system captured information related to health care workers who were the focus during the first phase. The deployment was based on DHIS2 web version with plans to explore probable use of android version during subsequent deployment for immunisation the general public.
The training of end users was conducted online using web conferencing platforms supported by distribution of simple user guides for end users. The end-user support was available through telephone calls, emails, instant messaging groups and remote desktop facilities. The system is currently planned to incorporate vaccination centres and preregistration of persons for the large-scale vaccination of general public.