Jeev: A Low-Cost Cell Phone Application for Tracking the Vaccination Coverage of Children in Rural Communities

Immunization saves millions of lives against vaccine-preventable diseases. Yet, 24 million children born every year do not receive proper immunization during their first year. UNICEF and WHO have emphasized the need to strengthen the immunization surveillance and monitoring in developing countries to reduce childhood deaths. In this regard, we present a software application called Jeev to track the vaccination coverage of children in rural communities. Jeev synergistically combines the power of smart phones and the ubiquity of cellular infrastructure, QR codes, and national identification cards. We present the design of Jeev and highlight its unique features along with a preliminary evaluation of its performance. We plan to pilot test Jeev in a rural population to study its effectiveness and identify socio-cultural issues that may arise in a large-scale deployment.