Human and animal vaccination campaign for nomadic pastoralists in Chad

• Research unit: TPH
• Project number: 8.06

Key words (German)

Impfung, Impfdichte, Pastoralisten, Nomaden, Epidemiologie, Gesundheitsökonomie, Tschad, Tiermedizin

Key words (English)

Vaccination, vaccination coverage, pastoralists, nomads, epidemiologie, health economy, Chad, veterinary medicine

Short description (English)

Nomad pastoralism is a highly adapted, sustainable way of life in an ecosystem that could otherwise not be used. In Africa alone, 20 to 30 million people are nomads. Nomads and migrants appear to be most vulnerable for exclusion from the health system. In Chad, the proportion of fully immunized nomadic children was zero in a health survey. In contrast, the majority of cattle kept by the same nomadic camps was vaccinated. As a starting point for this project we developed, integrated into the public health sector, a joint human and animal vaccination scheme whereby public health staff joins veterinary vaccination campaigns. So far we have demonstrated its technical and logistical feasibility and need now to demonstrate its performance and cost-effectiveness. A major challenge is the lack of demographic data on a highly mobile population. Our strategy is firstly to geographically map annual vaccination campaigns, record health systems performance and economic data and assess service perceptions by population. Secondly, vaccination coverage will be estimated by transect line and by "capture-recapture" methods. In a third step, economic analyses will establish the cost-effectiveness that also considers interactions between the health and agricultural sectors.

Project aims (English)

Demonstrate and test a cost effective high vaccination coverage of nomadic children and women in Chad by a joint human and animal vaccination scheme as an expansion of the existing national EPI program

The specific objectives are:

Fully vaccinate 40% of nomadic children and 60% of women in the zone of Grédaya, AmDobak/Chaddra

Establish performance, acceptance and cost-effectiveness of this novel intervention approach to develop a vaccination strategy for nomadic children and women, aiming at a national EPI for nomadic people in Chad and other Sahelian countries