To date, Samoa has been sheltered from the worst impacts of the pandemic, with only one recorded case of coronavirus. However, outbreaks in neighbouring countries have motivated Samoa to dedicate themselves to fully vaccinating the eligible population before an outbreak can take hold.
The national vaccine roll-out has been impressive in both scale and efficiency. But nothing has been more impressive than the national two-day lockdown, in which more than 770 persons teaming up to vaccinate almost 22,0000 persons in 20 hours over a two-day period. There were 155 teams, with 155 to transport them, travelling across Upolu and Savaii.
It was a whole of country effort, from healthcare workers who travelled door-to-door to deliver the vaccine, the village representatives who encouraged their community to get vaccinated, and those who waited with a red flag outside their home to indicate they still need to receive their vaccine. Every effort was taken to ensure that no one was left behind.
Samoa uses two BES tools for their COVID vaccine rollout: Tamanu and Tupaia. Tamanu, a patient-level EMR, is used to capture information for every individual receiving a vaccine. The data is then pulled into Tupaia to populate mapping led visuals to support the Ministry of Health in their vaccine delivery planning.
Importantly, all the data collected through our systems is provided in real-time and can be disaggregated by factors such as age and gender, down to the household level. These visuals allow the Ministry of Health to see vaccination rates in each area of the country, helping them to reallocate resources to areas of greatest need and make decisions to support the vaccine rollout strategy within hours, rather than days or weeks.
As of 28 September 2021, 94.4% of Samoa’s eligible population received their first dose and 52.4% their second dose. The two-day lockdown added 12% to the number of first dose vaccinations and 10% to those fully vaccinated.
The Director-General for the Samoan Ministry of Health has described Tupaia and Tamanu as “the most important digital tools we have used during the COVID pandemic. We are extremely grateful to DFAT and Beyond Essential Systems for the support they continue to provide to Samoa and the Pacific.”
Beyond Essential Systems looks forward to continuing to work with the Samoan Ministry of Health to reach full COVID-19 vaccination coverage and further implementing Tamanu across the country to assist in long-term patient outcomes.
Photo credits: Samoa MOH
If you’re interested in learning more about how our tools can support your mapping needs, you can learn more about Tamanu, explore our maps on Tupaia, or reach out to the team at Beyond Essential Systems.
