JAB

An AI automated system for equitable immunization of children under five to encourage preparedness and prevent vaccine-preventable outbreaks by increasing immunization coverage in rural areas of Uganda and other LMICs.

Immunization of children is the most essential and cost-effective way of ending vaccine preventable diseases that would result in the overuse of antibiotics, particularly non-bacterial infections leading to more drug resistant infections. 

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, immunization initiatives have been hampered due to fear by patients to be exposed to the virus at health care facilities, restriction of vaccination campaigns following social distancing measures, decrease in routine immunization coverage, shortage of workers, and diversion of resources from child health to address the pandemic and postponement of vaccines of certain age groups. 

This left healthcare systems immensely strained, leading to a drop in the global immunization coverage from 86% in 2019 to 83% in 2020 with 23 million children missing out on vaccination in 2020, 3.7 million more than in 2019 and the highest number since 2009. This also caused a disruption in vaccine campaigns in at least 68 countries affecting 80 million children under one year old in regard to data released by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the Sabin Vaccine Institute, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Decrease in children not receiving any dose of vaccination has majorly been noticed in low- and middle-income countries. Three African countries i.e., the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Nigeria are among the 10 countries that have registered to occupy 60% of the 23 million children missing out on vaccination during this Covid-19 pandemic. Following stagnation of immunization rates at 72% short of the 90% WHO target by 2020 in the years prior to the covid pandemic; the impact of COVID-19 on vaccination is yet to truly be ascertained.  

Uganda recorded a notable reduction in immunization attendance from March to July 2020 during Covid-19 pandemic following the lockdown which hampered access to health facilities as well as supplementary immunization activities carried out occasionally by UNEPI like immunization outreaches. 

This has increased the risk of disease outbreaks, morbidity and mortality, household and government expenses from vaccine preventable diseases and thereby birth antimicrobial resistance. 

Our solution involves the use of a centralized AI automated system software operating at health center level, that will timely remind parents and caretakers to immunize their children, trace and track immunisation progress, amplify sensitization and education of the community on immunization,  as well as enable easy access to vaccination data that will be used in proper planning of the vaccination process.

Health centres being the point of inception, clients shall be informed and required to submit their childrens' details that shall be fed into an electronic form that will be filled in by the healthcare provider and later synchronized to the central database. Those who will not be entered from the health centres shall get in touch with us through a dialable Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code where they will be able to fill in their details. 

Clients without phones will be in position to access members of our local area networks (LAN) that will comprise VHTs (Village Health Teams), local community leaders and community health workers who will feed in their details in the system. Details collected will include the name of the child as well as their parents, the contact of the parent, health workers as well as their address.

Our solution targets children under 5 years through their parents and caretakers, who will be sensitized, and be routinely reminded when to vaccinate their children as well as reminded of the relevancy of immunisation.

This will increase the number of children vaccinated thereby preventing vaccine preventable diseases and also reduce their mortality rate.

We are a multidisciplinary team comprising of students, health professionals and as well engaging other teams for project management and software development as technical support.

Some of the team members include;

Raymond is a medical student with experience in research as well as development and management of community engagement projects where he has served in numerous capacities on top of his clinical skills.

Steven is a medical student who has also participated in numerous projects as a leader and also volunteer. He has experience in lobbying.

Hellen is a biomedical engineer with knowledge in development of applications and systems but also coding in programming languages

Solomon is a physiotherapist who recently won a grant in innovation against antimicrobial drug resistance. He has volunteered in community projects and has good clinical skills and patient handling. 

We have been able to under the population needs through carrying out interviews with both the stakeholders and the public.

This has helped us understand our problem as identify how we can intervene.

What makes our solution Innovative is that it incorporates AI-based technology that can prioritize people for vaccination i.e. prioritize patients solely based on their age , AI has the capability of making predictions, organizes data and provides real time statistical data and makes it available for proper planning. Artificial intelligence also helps in vaccine distribution, handling, and storage.

Our impact goal is to have ensured complete immunization of over 1500 children in the next year

Our project will be multiphase and will utilize the existing structures in place to run. First, we shall design and develop the system. Then we shall partner and liaise with partners and stake holders such as the local community leadership, ministry of health, the local health centres, telecommunication companies and media platforms. 

Our next move shall then be pilot in the community through a selected local health centre in order to gauge its applicability and feasibility. Outcomes will be used to improve the system before being rolled out to the community.

The core technology of our project is Artificial Intelligence and also use of SMS(Short Message Service) and USSD(Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) Codes.

AI Is going to be used because of its capability of accurately forecasting demand for the vaccine in vaccine distribution and helps in identifying and building the distribution network that these vaccines need to be on for an efficient supply.

Because of its capability of supply chain management, it ensures visibility of supply chain performance in real-time while accounting for reserves due to algorithms and sensors integrated all through the supply chain. 

So, if a natural catastrophic event affects the supply of vaccines such as during COVID-19 pandemic, the AI system could determine the most effective way to increase the production and distribution of the drug while enabling waste reduction.

We haven't yet launched our solution but we are planning to serve over 1500 children on the next year.

Currently, we are lacking financial and technical support to kickstart our solution.

Currently, we aren't partnering with any organization but in talks with the available stakeholders who are positive about this.

Since immunisation is a free service in Uganda, we would love to operate as a non-profit organization where our key customers are children under 5 years with help of their parents and caretakers. 

They will targeted to receive immunisation services aided by use of the JAB system that will timely remind them of their immunisation schedules.

Our path to financial sustainability is through acceptance of donations from private individuals, for-profit companies, charitable foundations, and governments. 

We also aim to sell supplementary goods and services to immunisation that include delivery of medical supplies so as to raise revenue and as well allow subscription to cater for maintenance of the system.