Health Data Ecosystem Mapping: Tanzania
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) launched the Digital Innovation in Pandemic Control (DIPC) project in 2021 to bring digital health technical expertise to countries to create more pandemic-prepared health systems. The DIPC project provided an award to Digital Square to partner with ministries of health and other key stakeholders from November 2022 to 2024 to scale the use of digital tools for COVID-19 and routine vaccination planning, deployment, and monitoring. The DIPC project is creating models for improved and more sustainable pandemic-prepared health systems with a focus on immunization workflows using three exemplar countries: Ghana, Malawi, and Tanzania.
Scaling the Use of Digital Tools for Vaccination Planning, Deployment, and Monitoring
As part of the GIZ-funded Digital Innovation in Pandemic Control (DIPC) project, Digital Square partnered with the Tanzania Ministry of Health (MOH) to review existing assessments and workflows to better understand the landscape of solutions currently used in Tanzania’s immunization health domain. The MOH and Digital Square used various methodologies to produce this country profile, which included a desk review and consultative sessions with MOH officials. This country profile provides an overview of current digital immunization solutions used in Tanzania and outlines priorities so that Tanzania—guided by the MOH and its existing governance mechanisms and supported by other key stakeholders—can use the findings to inform its journey to develop and operationalize interoperable digital solutions that support immunization from end to end.
This country profile outlines three priority digital systems for immunization and five other integral digital systems. The report provides an overview of each system with a discussion of its major functional features and existing challenges as well as recommended interventions to strengthen each system. Tanzania is experiencing rapid growth in the development and adoption of these mobile and web-based digital health systems; however, a number of the existing systems are not integrated and/or interoperable. Although Tanzania has a strong technical capacity for working with digital systems (especially regarding DHIS2-based systems), there is a need for further capacity strengthening. There is also an urgent need to address the lack of stable Internet connectivity in low-resource settings to ensure users can effectively use the systems. Interoperability challenges and gaps in the digital systems supporting the functional components of immunization also exist (e.g., digital immunization certificates, microplanning, product catalog).
As part of the ecosystem mapping exercise, end users of the digital solutions (e.g., District and Regional Immunization and Vaccine Officers, or DIVOs/RIVOs) provided specific recommendations on features and interventions they would like to see added to the immunization registry, including incorporation of COVID-19 (and all forms of adult) immunization.
This country profile is intended to serve as a resource for the GoT and other stakeholders (e.g., donors, implementers, academic institutions) who are working to strengthen digital systems that support immunization.