BACKGROUND:
Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania and Eritrea are all countries which have received funding from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) and the Vaccine Fund (VF) to strengthen their routine immunization program, to improve injection safety and to introduce new and under-used vaccines in these countries, namely Hepatitis B and/or Hib. The reporting requirements for this funding (progress reports, data quality audits and financial sustainability plans) have revealed that the population estimates used for calculations of coverage, vaccine procurement and financing projects are inaccurate, resulting in either the underestimation or overestimation of vaccine need and financing requirement.

OBJECTIVE:
To learn the effect of a small variation in the target population and population growth can have on projections of vaccine and financing requirement.

METHOD:
Financial analysis of vaccine requirement for the four countries using data from their financial sustainability plan submitted to GAVI.

RESULT:
After the results of the recent census in Uganda and Ghana, Uganda discovered that they had vastly underestimated the vaccine requirements and will require additional funds from the Ministry of Finance. Ghana’s census revealed a more modest population growth than previously projected. Tanzania estimates using census data from the 1980s, extrapolated using a standard rate. A small error in the growth rate would change the coverage estimate by as much as 15 percentage points. There has been no census in Eritrea since independence, international agencies and the government are using different target population estimates and population growth which result in questionable coverage rates.

CONCLUSION:
This analysis demonstrates the need for accurate population data for accurate vaccine procurement and program planning.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
To understand the impact of inaccurate estimations of population data on immunization program planning and financing.