How maps helped MSF vaccinate 700,000 people in 10 days

Originally published on October 23, 2017.

In August 2016, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) conducted the biggest yellow fever vaccination campaign in the organisation’s history. Over a period of just 10 days, MSF staff vaccinated more than 700,000 people in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This would be a massive undertaking in any country, but doing so in a city like Kinshasa, where you don’t have street maps and where you don’t know how many people are living in the different parts of the city, is even more challenging. MSF asked me to look into the role that geographic information systems (GIS) played in the success of the campaign and to summarize my findings in a case study. This case study has now been published.

Unlike in the Ebola case studies (here and here), the focus was not on epidemiology but on the various organisational aspects of the vaccination campaign.

You can download the case study “ GIS support for the 2016 MSF yellow fever vaccination campaign in Kinshasa” here.