Summary:
By Express News ServiceHYDERABAD: With an aim to ‘increase demand for vaccination through convenience’, Jignesh Patel, a fellow at Foundation for Centre for Healthcare Entrepreneurship (CfHE) at IIT Hyderabad has developed a mobile vaccination service model. With his model, which was developed in collaboration with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the IITian plans to increase vaccination coverage among low-income urban populations in the country by designing a mobile vaccine service, including a smartphone-based management application that provides customised vaccinations at homes and schools, and that too at a lower cost. The project is one of the 50 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 22 grants announced by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. However, vaccination coverage is low among low-income populations in urban centres. “This model will help in developing an affordable, convenient, in-home vaccination service, and a smartphone-based management application to schedule appointments, automate routes, record vaccination data and collect customer feedback,” Patel explained..