Vaccines are responsible for millions of lives being saved
each year. They are responsible for eradication of smallpox, a 74% reduction in
childhood deaths from measles over the past decade, and the near eradication of Polio.
Despite these great achievement, there remains an urgent need
to reach all children with life-saving vaccines. One in every five children
worldwide are not fully protected with the most basic vaccines. As a result, an
estimated 1.5M children lose their life to vaccine preventable diseases – one
every 20 seconds. One of the biggest operational problem is that even if there
is a vaccination drive going in the vicinity, people are largely unaware about
it especially in the low economic settings.
According to a research by Columbia University, sending text
messages to mobile phones can help increase immunisation rates and reduce the
spread of vaccine-preventable infections.
According to Dr. Melissa Stockwell, Associate Professor of
Paediatrics and Population Family Health at Columbia University, text reminders
can be more effective than traditional communication methods.
According to Stockwell, parents feel that it shows the
healthcare providers care for them, even when they are not right in front of
them. Traditional form of communication like phone and postcards often don’t
work in low income, adolescent and rural population. Sending a text message
which has an upper limit of 160 characters is not always easy. Text messages
are usually no more than 160 characters long, yet it is essential that texts
from doctors’ practices get the tone right; that speak a language that is well
understood without being too informal.
According to Dr. Stockwell, the character limit actually ends
up being helpful because it forces one to be brief, thus ending up using
language that is understandable to the patients and their families.
Source: VaccinesToday
No comments:
Post a Comment