A cluster survey for determination of regular vaccination coverage among children

One of the objectives of the Expanded Program of Immunization (EPI) is to achieve and sustain vaccination coverage to >90%. The coverage is not uniform within the districts, some of the areas showing more than 100% while others are far behind. The objective of the survey was to determine the coverage of immunization among children 12-23 months of age in Rautahat District of Nepal. A cross-sectional method was applied with the 30-cluster sampling method followed by taking a sample of 210 children. The structured questionnaire requesting information about socio-economic characteristics, vaccination, history of vaccination, doses of vaccines, and vaccination records were used for collecting data. The coverage responses according to history from mothers for BCG, DPTHb-3, Polio3 and Measles immunizations were 96.7%, 90.0%, 97.6% and 78.1% respectively. By analyzing the records of the sampled Village Development Committees (VDCs), the coverage for the same vaccines was 88.1%, 78.1%, 79.0, 73.8% respectively. The drop-out of BCG versus measles was also very high. The District Health Office (DHO) reports were remarkably higher than the coverage of immunizations obtained by the survey, showing additional number of the target children.