COVID-19 Vaccination: Opportunity to Strengthen Immunization System in Belize

Objective: To describe the process of leveraging COVID-19 vaccination roll out to strengthen immunization system in Belize. Methodology: The Case study was conducted using desk review of relevant documents for the roll out of COVID 19 vaccination in response to the pandemic and analysis of the COVID-19 vaccination and routine immunization data extracted from the Belize Health Information System. The approach was a retrospective review of the strategies adopted by the government of Belize with support of UNICEF and other health partners using the roll out of COVID-19 vaccination to strengthen the country’s immunization system. Descriptive data is presented in graph and table and a test of association was done using a paired t-test to compare the mean change in annual routine immunization coverage before (2020) and after (2022) roll out of COVID-19 vaccination and p-value was set at a significant level of 5% Results: The National Vaccine Implementation Plan for the introduction of COVID-19 vaccination in 2021 was used as a transformative opportunity for building resilient immunization programs. Key areas focused on in the study were the enhancement of cold chain equipment and storage capacity, utilization of digital tools, improved data management, and innovative immunization service delivery. The result shows that the annual coverage of the first dose and third dose of pentavalent vaccine (Penta 3) increased from 79% and 78.5% in 2020 to 91% and 84.3% in 2022 respectively though not statistically significant (p value> 0.05). So far, 258,443 (65% of the total population) have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 221,402 individuals (51.3% of the total population) have been fully vaccinated. Conclusion: The study contributes to the existing literature on the use of COVID-19 investments as an opportunity to strengthen the health system with a focus on immunization services which is essential in building a resilient health system.