‘Vaccinate my village’ strategy in Malawi: an effort to boost COVID-19 vaccination

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.

Keywords

• vaccine
• covid-19
• malawi
• vaccination coverage