GeoVax: Bringing Together Vaccination Coverage and Population Movement Data to Help Health Teams Plan Outreach and Reach Every Missing Child
Published on
November 2026
How the Umbrella Fund for Geospatial Interventions is supporting a locally led solution to strengthen vaccination planning and outreach
The Children Who Remain Unreached
Every year, many children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) miss essential routine vaccinations, leaving them vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases. Despite progress in immunization coverage, reaching zero-dose and under-vaccinated children remains a significant public health challenge, particularly in densely populated urban areas such as Kinshasa.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, coverage of the first dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine (DTP1) has improved in recent years. However, national progress can conceal significant disparities between provinces and within individual health zones. Sustaining these gains requires vaccination teams to understand where coverage gaps exist, how populations move and which communities may be underserved.
In Kinshasa, these challenges are especially pronounced in peripheral neighborhoods and informal settlements, where mobile populations, newly arrived households and displaced communities can be difficult to reach through fixed vaccination posts and scheduled campaigns.
Local operational plans, known as microplans, guide vaccination activities by identifying target populations, service delivery locations and outreach priorities. While household surveys provide valuable information on vaccination coverage, they may not capture neighborhood-level gaps and population movements with the frequency or detail required for effective outreach planning. This can make it difficult for vaccination teams to identify communities that may require additional attention
The Data Already Exists in Kinshasa
Kinshasa has a substantial body of geospatial and public health data that could support more targeted vaccination planning.
The Kinshasa School of Public Health (KSPH), working with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), has produced vaccination coverage estimates for one-square-kilometre grid cells and health areas across the city. Using Bayesian statistical methods, these estimates combine national vaccination coverage surveys, demographic and health surveys, and contextual factors such as insecurity and proximity to health facilities and schools.
Additional datasets offer further insights into how people live and move across the city. The Flowminder Foundation provides population mobility analysis, while GRID3 offers geospatial information on the locations of health facilities and settlements. Together, these datasets provide complementary perspectives on vaccination coverage, population movement and access to health services.
The challenge, therefore, is not simply generating more data. It is translating existing information into practical guidance that vaccination teams can use to identify priority areas, strengthen microplanning and make better-informed outreach decisions.
This is the gap that GeoVax seeks to address.
Introducing GeoVax
Developed by KSPH, GeoVax is a locally led solution designed to bridge the gap between available geospatial data and everyday vaccination planning.
With funding from the Umbrella Fund for Geospatial Interventions, supported by the Gates Foundation and implemented in collaboration with Dev-Afrique, the project will pilot an integrated platform that brings together vaccination coverage estimates, population mobility patterns, and information on health facilities and settlements.
Programme coordinators will use an interactive web-based dashboard to examine where estimated vaccination gaps overlap with population movements and access to services. The platform will provide recommendations to support microplanning, campaign targeting and monitoring.
Frontline health workers will access GeoVax through a lightweight mobile application designed for settings with limited or no internet connectivity. An integrated conversational assistant will allow users to ask questions in plain French and receive information to support their field activities.
By bringing these different sources of information into a single platform, GeoVax aims to make complex geospatial evidence more accessible and useful to the people responsible for planning and delivering vaccination services.
GeoVax in the Hands of a Health Worker
Imagine a health worker preparing for a vaccination outreach session in Kinshasa.
Before heading into the field, she opens the GeoVax application and reviews a simplified map highlighting areas where zero-dose and under-vaccinated children are estimated to be concentrated. The map helps her identify locations that may require additional outreach and prioritise activities within her health area.
She can also ask the integrated assistant questions in French. For example, she might ask which areas have the lowest estimated coverage of the third dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine (DTP3). The assistant would respond with an explanation supported by a map, helping her interpret the available information.
Importantly, GeoVax presents estimates and patterns across geographic areas. It does not identify individual children or households or confirm their vaccination status.
At the end of the outreach session, the health worker would record aggregated vaccination session data through the application. This information would synchronise once connectivity becomes available, allowing the platform to support field activities in low-connectivity settings.
The proposed solution is intended to complement, rather than replace, the professional judgement of health workers and programme coordinators. Its design will also involve frontline users to ensure that the platform responds to their operational needs and working environments.
What the Pilot Will Test
The GeoVax pilot will be implemented over nine months in one health zone in Kinshasa. It will assess whether vaccination coverage estimates, population mobility data, and geospatial information can be integrated into a stable, accessible and practical tool for local vaccination planning.
The pilot will also examine how frontline teams interact with the platform, whether it responds to their operational needs and how useful they find it in supporting everyday decisions. Its immediate focus is on technical feasibility, usability and operational relevance rather than demonstrating changes in vaccination coverage.
At least ten field agents and programme coordinators will participate in the design and testing process, with a target of at least 70% of participants rating the platform as very useful.
The project will also incorporate measures to support responsible data use. The underlying models will undergo epidemiological validation by KSPH, while recommendations will include information on confidence levels and limitations. Individual vaccination records will be aggregated to health-area level before entering the platform, and mobility data will be provided in anonymised form under a formal data-sharing agreement with Flowminder. The project also intends to align with applicable Congolese legal requirements and relevant WHO guidance on health data.
A final report will document the pilot's findings, implementation challenges and limitations, alongside recommendations for institutional ownership and the conditions required for wider adoption.
The findings will help determine whether GeoVax can translate complex vaccination and geospatial data into more informed outreach decisions. They will also guide future decisions on investment, broader deployment and subsequent assessments of vaccination outcomes.
Looking Ahead
The GeoVax pilot presents an opportunity to explore how existing geospatial evidence can be translated into practical tools that support vaccination planning and service delivery.
Beyond testing the platform's technical capabilities, the pilot will generate lessons on how locally developed solutions can respond to the operational needs of frontline health workers and strengthen the use of data within public health systems.
These lessons could have relevance beyond the initial health zone, informing future approaches to integrating geospatial information into immunisation planning in the DRC and other settings facing similar challenges.
Through its support for GeoVax, the Umbrella Fund is contributing to a broader effort to strengthen locally led geospatial innovation and its application to public health challenges.
The Umbrella Fund invites health authorities, technical partners, funders and organisations working across immunisation and geospatial data to follow the pilot and engage with the learning it generates. Such collaboration can help inform future investments and strengthen approaches to reaching underserved and under-vaccinated communities.
Sources
Flowminder Foundation, about the organization
WHO, IA2030 indicator definition for zero-dose children. The operational measure is non-receipt of the first DTP-containing vaccine dose.
