Muhammad Mazhar Qureshi’s Updates
Week 1 Assignment
· Question #1. Should Harmonia conduct an EPI survey early next year? What are your considerations?
Yes, Harmonia should conduct another survey next year. Administrative coverage shows an increasing trend, but it cannot be verified. Although efforts are being made to improve data quality, but denominator is an issue as census is 15 years old. Further, the country has introduced PCV three years ago. Now, it is the time to assess the coverage of newly introduced vaccine.
Question #2. The steering committee includes representatives from the national Ministry of Health, National Statistics Office, WHO, UNICEF, and a donor. Given what you have already learned about Harmonia, what do you think will be their primary question of interest for the survey (estimation, comparison, or classification)? Why?
Estimation of coverage will be primary question. However, it is a big country with 10 provinces and 100 districts. Comparison among provinces is very important because mostly health is provincial subject. Classification may not be important as there is already high coverage.
Question #3. Who will comprise the target population and why?
The vaccination programme in Harmonia spans birth to 18 months. It could target 24-36 month to enable to estimate coverage for all vaccines in the schedule.