High-Level Gavi Mission in Brazzaville
A high-level delegation from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, visited the headquarters of Catholic Relief Services in central Brazzaville on October 7, 2025, marking a key milestone in Congo’s effort to reach every child with routine immunization.
The visitors reviewed a two-year project targeting five departments—Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, Plateaux, Sangha, and Likouala—where zero-dose and under-vaccinated children still pose a challenge for public health planners.
The CRS Country Representative welcomed the mission alongside program directors overseeing Gavi and Global Fund grants, expressing confidence that recent field innovations can be institutionalized within Congo’s Expanded Program on Immunization.
The atmosphere in the conference room was positive and reflective, with participants aware that progress against vaccine-preventable diseases must endure long after donor funding cycles end.
Routine Immunization Progress 2024-2025
Between January 2024 and November 2025, the project vaccinated approximately 80% of the 12,000 children previously unreached by any antigen, a provisional figure that officials say is already improving coverage curves in hard-to-reach urban peripheries and forest communities.
Mobile teams, supported by community leaders and real-time dashboards, navigated muddy tracks during heavy rains while maintaining cold chain integrity, according to field notes shared at the meeting.
Parents surveyed in the Talangaï district of Brazzaville reported shorter wait times at clinics, attributing this improvement to staggered appointment lists generated by DIGIT+, while several mothers stated that radio jingles in Lingala clarified where and when teams would be available.
Community health volunteers described the new approach as empowering and time-saving.
Participants also recalled that a measles outbreak in early 2025 threatened to disrupt schedules, forcing a rapid integration of outbreak response into regular outreach sessions without reducing focus on pentavalent doses for infants.
Data verification from health districts is ongoing, but provincial supervisors anticipate that final figures will reflect the provisional trend once cross-checks are completed by independent monitors.
The DIGIT+ Platform Locates Zero-Dose Children
A technological highlight of the project is DIGIT+, a geospatial platform that maps households, reports vaccination status, and generates predictive routes for nurses.
Screens displayed during the briefing showed colored landmarks in the Ngamaba and Makelekele districts, guiding vaccinators to riverside hamlets that previously required estimations.
According to the CRS digital health unit, the system reduced the average search time per child from two hours to forty minutes while feeding anonymized data into the national health information system.
Gavi delegates expressed interest in replicating the application in Congo’s next Health Development Plan, an indication that donor-funded tech pilots may increasingly align with government digital ecosystems.
Capacity Building Strengthens the EPI
Beyond digital goals, the initiative directed resources toward mentoring district logisticians, retraining data clerks, and renovating cold rooms—actions the Ministry of Health considers fundamental for resilience.
Trainers emphasized updated micro-planning, applying the WHO’s “Reaching Every District” approach to Congolese realities, while supervisors refined supportive coaching techniques rather than traditional fault-focused audits.
Participants were reminded that capacity gains remain national assets regardless of funding cycles, adding that “skills do not expire with grants; they multiply when integrated into civil service rhythms.”
Representatives from the Expanded Program on Immunization echoed this sentiment, indicating that refresher workshops will be integrated into the 2026 budget proposal currently under inter-ministerial review.
Synergies with Global Fund Cycle 8
Looking ahead, CRS and Gavi explored opportunities to co-manage program management units alongside future Global Fund grants for malaria and health system strengthening planned for 2027–2029.
Officials suggested that shared governance could reduce overhead, harmonize reporting tools, and create a single dashboard for commodity tracking, thereby freeing up provincial staff to focus on frontline delivery.
No binding commitments were announced, but both sides described the concept as “smart efficiency” worth refining before Global Fund concept notes are finalized in 2026.
Observers within the Ministry of Health argue that integrated stewardship reflects the government’s broader ambition to streamline partners under a single budget framework aligned with the National Development Plan.
Closure Timeline and Sustaining Gains
An official closing ceremony, tentatively scheduled for late November, will unveil consolidated figures, lessons learned, and a roadmap for maintaining community engagement beyond the grant period.
Meanwhile, district health teams continue uploading the latest vaccination maps into DIGIT+, while external evaluators contracted by CRS cross-check tally sheets with household registries.
It was confirmed that Congo’s experience illustrates “how adaptive outreach, technology, and local ownership combine to find the last child” and that the findings will inform alliance policy documents next spring.
For its part, CRS indicated it will maintain a lean monitoring core until mid-2026 to guide handover tasks and resolve any data discrepancies that could compromise national coverage indicators.
As Congo prepares for the next routine immunization strategy cycle, the synergy observed in Brazzaville suggests that the momentum built since 2024 is positioned to outlive the grant that sparked it.