Dhaka: Reminding mothers about immunisation of new-born babies through SMS on mobile phones has significantly improved vaccination coverage among hard-to-reach population in the country, reveals a new icddr,b study.

Despite tremendous immunisation growth, vaccination coverage in the country stands at only 82 percent as of 2014, primarily due to the difficulty in tracking mothers and newborns in remote rural areas and urban street dweller communities.

Targeting these two areas with automated SMS reminders for one year, an mHealth intervention developed by icddr,b scientists, has helped increase full vaccination coverage among children over 298 days of age.

Vaccination coverage has increased from 58.9 percent to 76.8 percent in rural area while from 40.7 percent to 57.1 percent in urban areas, according to the study findings posted on icddr,b website.

The study shows that technology-aided vaccination reminders can be useful for Bangladesh, a country with good mobile-cellular penetration and a nation committed to the World Health Organization’s Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) since 1979, aiming to promote universal access to all relevant vaccines for everyone at risk.

Principal investigator of the study Dr M Jasim Uddin said the study findings also imply that developing countries with high mobile phone usage could replicate such technology-driven interventions on a broader scale to enhance health impact.

During field visits, the health workers supported pregnant mothers in using their own mobile phones to register themselves and send SMS notifications to the web database of the government’s Directorate General of Health Services when their babies were born, he said.

The study found that almost half of the mothers included in the study from street dweller populations did not report the births of their children, compared to one third of mothers from remote rural areas.  Therefore a large portion of the target community was not reached.

However, as the study showed success in improving child immunisation coverage for those who did participate, Dr Jasim hoped that mHealth interventions can be developed further to become a powerful tool for health outreach to slums by linking residents to nearby health services.