Open, non-judgmental and empowering communication between health professionals and other community workers who have contact with families can help to build mutual trust and confidence in vaccine, immunization services and the health system in general. Effective interpersonal communication (IPC) will contribute to improve the immunization coverage and decrease the dropout rate of immunization.

Therefore, as part of its support to increasing demand for immunization in Afghanistan, EMPHNET has been working with the Ministry of Public Health in conducting official training for vaccinators on IPC. The training is targeting five low-performance provinces with high dropout rates: Paktika Khost, Parwan, Faryab and Logar provinces. 

So far, eight batches of vaccinators received training in the Paktika and Khost provinces over a period of three months between November 2022 and February 2023. 200 immunization frontline workers have been trained and EMPHNET has a plan to train another 175 vaccinators in three provinces. 

These IPC-focused training workshops are expected to improve the knowledge of the vaccinators on the benefits of vaccines. Following the IPC training, we are confident that the quality of their communication and engagement with the families may have a positive influence on caregivers’ decision to immunize their children, by this the immunization coverage will improve and the dropout rate will decrease.