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Vaccination - Indicators

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There are two basic indicators commonly used to assess vaccination programmes, both routine vaccination in clinics and vaccination campaigns:

  • Vaccine coverage. Vaccine coverage is the proportion of children who are eligible to receive a specific vaccine who have actually received it according to the recommended protocol. There are two basic ways to measure coverage:
    • Administrative coverage is measured by counting the number of doses of vaccine given and dividing by the number of eligible children in the population.
    • Survey coverage is measured by determining the vaccination status of eligible children selected for a population-based survey.
  • Vaccine-preventable disease incidence. The ultimate impact of vaccination should be a decrease in the incidence of the disease which the vaccine is meant to prevent. Good population coverage with a vaccine should decrease the incidence of this disease.