The costs of developing, deploying and maintaining electronic immunisation registries in Tanzania and Zambia

OBJECTIVE: To determine the costs to develop, roll out and maintain electronic immunisation registries (EIRs) and a related suite of data use interventions. METHODS: The Better Immunisation Data (BID) Initiative conducted the activities from 2013 to 2018 in three regions in Tanzania and one province in Zambia. The Initiative’s financial records were used to account for the financial costs of designing and developing the EIRs, BID staff time, expenditures for rolling out the EIR systems and the related suite of interventions to health facilities, and recurrent costs. Total financial costs, cost per facility and cost per child were calculated in 2018 US$. FINDINGS: Total expenditures were ~US$4.2 million in Tanzania and US$3.6 million in Zambia. System design and development costs accounted for ~33% and 26% of the expenditures in each country, respectively, while BID staff costs accounted for 39% and 52%, respectively. Average expenditures per health facility for rolling out the EIR system were between US$709 and US$1320 for the Tanzania regions and US$2591 for Zambia. The annualised average expenditure per child was estimated to be between US$3.30 and US$3.81 for the regions in Tanzania and US$8.46 in Zambia. Expenditures per child were higher in Zambia partly because of a much smaller birth cohort compared with Tanzania. CONCLUSION: Other countries may benefit from the investments made and lessons learnt in Tanzania and Zambia by leveraging these now existing EIR platforms and rollout strategies, and hence may be able to implement EIRs at lower costs than reported here.