GTA

Support: Family Welfare Division (FWD), World Health Organization (WHO)

Partner: Gavi

Status: Phase out

Objective: The project aims to strengthen Nepal’s measles-rubella surveillance system by identifying, deploying, and evaluating Measles IgM Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) strategies to support the country’s goal of measles elimination. Through collaboration with national stakeholders, the project focuses on:

• Evaluating different deployment and testing strategies for Measles IgM RDTs to measure measles incidence.
• Comparing time-to-results across different strategies, from suspected case identification to testing results.
• Assessing the impact of RDT-based testing on identifying unimmunized and under- immunized children and communities, supporting targeted immunization efforts.
• Estimating the costs associated with each deployment and testing approach.
• Exploring health system facilitators and barriers in integrating RDT-based surveillance into the national measles-rubella surveillance system.

Outcome: The project successfully deployed Measles IgM RDT kits across targeted sites, ensuring their use was accompanied by comprehensive training for health workers on sample

collection, testing, data reporting, and case notification. This resulted in faster case detection and improved timeliness of outbreak response