Necklace to help with Vaccination for kids | Fusion - WeRIndia

Here is a unique idea to help parents keep track of newborn babies’ vaccine details in Rural Rajasthan. The black thread worn by many newborn babies is used for that. A tool called Khushi Baby necklace which uses the black thread has been made to record the immunization details of a baby.

There are many cases where the immunization details of a child is lost. In such cases, the health worker working in immunization camps would not have an idea of what vaccines were done for the child. As it is common for many parents to lose the card. Immunization camps in rural areas often had this problem.

The health workers then have to check a standard Reproductive Child Health (RCH) register. However, it is quite cumbersome to find relevant information in it. This results in an uncertain health plan for the child.

This problem has caused vaccination gaps for many children across Indian villages. India has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world, at under 60%. The recommended rate set by WHO is 90%.

To solve this problem, Khushi Baby, a not-for-profit organization, created a new technology to track health data – the Khushi Baby necklace.

The necklace would record and track immunization data of newborn babies across the country. It digitizes the information for easy access. The Khushi Baby (KB) system uses a waterproof plastic pendant with a near field communication (NFC) chip combined to the black thread. It works with a mobile app.

The health worker assigns a new necklace to every baby on the first visit to a vaccination camp. Using the NFC-enabled smartphone or tablet with the KB app, the necklace is scanned and info of the baby is stored with details like name, father’s name, mother’s name, date of birth, etc. The vaccines are also registered.

Whenever the child is taken to the next immunization camp, the health worker can scan the necklace and know about all vaccines the child has taken.

Image Reference: TheBetterIndia