Suvita increases uptake of immunisations to combat vaccine-preventable diseases.
In India, one child dies every 4 minutes from a vaccine-preventable disease. India is home to nearly half of the world's under-immunised children born each year, with 10 million children per year not getting all their recommended vaccines by their first birthday. Suvita delivers two evidence-based programmes to increase uptake of immunisation, by supporting new parents to overcome the most common barriers which cause children to drop out of their immunisation schedule.
Immunisation ambassadors: Members of the community nominated as natural influencers are invited to become immunisation ambassadors. Suvita regularly supports ambassadors with information about vaccination, which they can share with others in their local area using whichever approach they believe to be best suited to their community.
SMS reminders: We send SMS reminders direct to new parents, which are delivered in their preferred language and customised to their child's immunisation schedule. This helps parents remember to bring their child for vaccination at the right time. (Our SMS reminders programme was formerly branded as Charity Science Health).
Over 200,000 families have enrolled for our SMS reminders from 7 states, and we are collaborating with the Bihar and Maharashtra state governments to expand enrolment through their reproductive child health databases.
We have launched a pilot of the immunisation ambassadors’ programme in Saran district, Bihar, to cover 5,000 children. After achieving proof of concept, we will continue to iterate and scale the programme.