Thank you for the quesiton. I could not discern which country you were talking about - could you clarify please?
My attempt to respond is below.
- EVM assessment was not designed as an individual research tool – but to be used in conjunction with the national EPI programme’s interest to benchmark its performance against standards and take the findings as inputs to the design of improvement strategies.
- The downside of taking a ‘personal’ approach to assessment is that it may be seen, by some governments, as an imposed ‘external audit’, which may not be constructive.
- A personal research effort could be a great catalyst to an uptake of the EVM approach to immunisation supply chain strengthening by national EPI programmes, when certain conditions are met – first and foremost, when the government is seen to be commissioning this ‘trial’ assessment, as a way to understand its benefits.
- When planning the sample size for such an assessment, care should be taken. Assessing a couple of individual facilities is unlikely to be representative and the results and implications for the entire system may be misinterpreted. It would however be possible to draw a representative sample from a part of the country – e.g., defined in terms of coverage and equity rates (low or high, as the case may be).