Tracking Vaccination Teams During Polio Campaigns in Northern Nigeria by Use of Geographic Information System Technology: 2013–2015

The 41st World Health Assembly's resolution in 1988 for the worldwide eradication of polio marked the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), spearheaded by national governments, the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the United Nations Children's Fund and supported by key partners [1]. The GPEI was based on 4 strategies: high coverage with oral polio vaccine in routine immunization, surveillance for acute flaccid paralysis, supplemental immunization activities (SIAs), and mop-up immunizations. Nigeria made significant efforts but remained endemic for wild poliovirus (WPV) as a result of several factors but mainly because of poor quality and coverage of the SIAs. Another hindrance was the inability to identify areas that were missed by timely intervention with vaccination to provide the required herd immunity to break the polio transmission. The government of Nigeria, through the national and state emergency polio operations centers (EOCs), in collaboration with the WHO and partners, deployed geographic information system (GIS) technology to track vaccination teams during polio campaigns. These innovations are now increasingly used by public health professionals to visualize and explore disease patterns [2–5]. Similar tools were also used in India to monitor population migration through railroads, and Google Earth was used to track the poliovirus down the Congo River [6, 7]. These studies have demonstrated that GIS is an essential tool for making informed decisions on health, social, and environmental issues. In Nigeria, global positioning system (GPS) and GIS solutions were deployed in 2010 and piloted in the tracking of vaccination teams and for supporting the microplanning process for SIAs [8, 9]. Since 2010, GIS has been part of an intense package of interventions in Nigeria and has contributed to the successes so far recorded. The quality of the immunization campaigns has significantly improved, and the country has recorded a significant decline in the number of confirmed cases of WPV infection between 2012 and 2015, from 122 cases to 0. This article describes the innovative use of GIS in tracking vaccination teams during SIAs.