A highly transmissible new variant of the virus has been devastating the population, including Nepal’s younger population.

Expected Results

1) The Government has improved systems in place to ensure the preservation of the cold chain through to vaccination sites in remote districts and communities;

2) Frontline health workers and outreach health facility in rural primary health clinics have improved capacity to conduct COVID-19 vaccine delivery rollout; and

3) Local health systems have improved capacity on COVID-19 clinical case management, Community Investigation Contact Tracing (CICT) through roll out of related guidelines and equipment support.

4) Health workers and key community messengers are vaccine acceptance champions, dispelling rumors, combatting misinformation and providing accurate information about COVID-19 and vaccination; and

5) Vulnerable and remote communities demonstrate improved knowledge of COVID-19 prevention and increased vaccine acceptance.

Main Activities

• Provide equipment, including refrigerator, deep refrigerator, ice-lined refrigerator, cold box, ice packs and vaccine carriers to the full vaccine supply chain, from provincial cold rooms to vaccination sites.
• Train health personnel and support staff on supply chain management and database management at district and local levels.
• Organize coordination and consultation meetings between three tiers of government and other stakeholders, such as UNICEF and the World Health Organization to improve the supply chain management specific to the target area.
• Train frontline health workers, outreach health facility worker, female community health volunteers (FCHVs), and members of the Health Facility Management Committee on national vaccination guidelines, microplanning of vaccinations, beneficiary registration, and vaccination tracking and monitoring.
• Provide funding and materials needed at vaccination sites (Personal protective equipment for vaccinators, volunteers and other support staff; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facility maintenance; etc.).
• Provide transportation support to poor, vulnerable people (particularly Dalit, people with disabilities, and households headed by women or elderly people) to access vaccination sites.
• Provide training to health workers on clinical management of   COVID-19.
• Provide coaching and mentoring to health care workers for COVID-19 case management.
• Provide medical supplies including diagnostic kits to health facility for clinical case management of COVID-19 cases.
• Support local government to mobilize CICT team.
• Mobilize FCHVs and community health volunteers for contact tracing referrals.
• Train and support FCHVs, community leaders and religious leaders to raise community awareness about access to vaccination sites and vaccine-related misconceptions.
• Adapt and distribute the Government of Nepal’s vaccination-related informational and educational materials to target municipalities.
• Conduct communication campaigns through broadcast radio messages and voice messages through Interactive Voice Response system on the importance of vaccination.