To achieve rapid vaccination to stop the pandemic, many countries—across all income levels—set up large-venue mass-vaccination sites. The lessons and challenges of these sites were recently captured by the Global Mass Vaccination Site Collaborative (GMVSC), a joint initiative led by the Sabin Vaccine Institute’s Boost Community and Ariadne Labs. GMVSC provided live programming, resources, and accessible tools to assist staff as they planned and began operationalization of mass vaccination sites in low- and middle-income countries. Meetings were held twice a month from Dec 2021 to May 2022, where stakeholders who directed vaccination campaigns shared experiences, resources and best practices.
These learnings are available on the GMVSC open access website, in the form of practical tools, stories of experiences, and playbooks. A few examples:
Increasing vaccine uptake in Côte d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
In December 2021, VillageReach launched two COVID-19 specific vaccination sites—also known as “vaccinodromes” in Francophone countries—that were geared toward increasing vaccine uptake in Côte d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) . Read the post summarizing considerations for standing up a “vaccinodrome,” including lessons learned along the way.
A practical budget template for a high through-put vaccination site
With feedback from the GMVSC meeting discussions, UNICEF developed a Budget Template for High Through-Put COVID-19 Vaccination Sites.
An operations playbook for running mass vaccination sites
You can download an extensive operations playbook “Community-Based COVID-19 Vaccination Manual.” CORE and Partners In Health developed this manual based on lessons learned from CORE’s experience operating community COVID-19 vaccination sites in U.S. locations, but have made the guide accessible and useful to adapt to other countries and situations.
Applications for other contexts; exploring when mass vaccination is effective
While these website resources center on COVID-19 sites they are also applicable for future pandemics and aspects of broader health care delivery. “While GMVSC was created for COVID-19, its learnings can contribute to a landscape of resources for future vaccination sites that will experience similar logistical challenges,” says Jenna Groman, Director of Global Communities of Practice at Sabin. Groman added that the lessons shared during the GMSVC brought up questions such as service delivery models and understanding when mass vaccination is necessary and effective. Topics such as these will continue to be explored in the Boost Community, a global network of over 3,000 immunization professionals from across 150 countries, dedicated to supporting peer-to-peer learning and offering training and knowledge resources to aid in navigating complex challenges and generating innovative solutions.