Title: The EPI Registration Book
Course: Immunization - Ethiopia (Full)

The EPI Registration Book

The EPI Registration Book (or Immunization Register) is a book for entering immunization data. It helps you keep a record of the immunization services you offer to each infant and to women of childbearing age, particularly all those who are pregnant (Figure 10.3). Your Health Post can either have two separate EPI Registration Books, one for recording infant immunizations and another for recording TT given to women, or one book to record both. The Immunization Register can also be used like a birth register. As soon as an infant is born in the community, its name can be entered in the register even before the infant has received any immunizations. This will help you to follow up all infants in the community.

Figure 10.3  All women of childbearing age should be entered in your EPI Registration Book the first time they come to your Health Post, or outreach site. Their records should also be entered in the Family Folder. (Photo: Basiro Davey)

What information is entered in the Registration Book?

The EPI Registration Book should include the following information:

- a unique identification number (registration number)
- registration date (usually the date of the first visit)
- full name of infant
- infant’s birth date
- infant’s sex
- immunizations (vaccine lot number and dose) and vitamin A supplements given
- whether the infant was protected at birth (PAB) from neonatal tetanus
- additional remarks (e.g. growth monitoring).

The following information about TT doses given to women may be recorded in a separate book, or in your EPI Registration Book:

- name and address of mother
- TT immunization provided to pregnant and non-pregnant women in the target age group (15–49 years) by dose.

Using the Registration Book

You must register infants, and women in the 15–49 age group (whether they are pregnant or not), as soon as they arrive at the Health Post or outreach site. Fill in all the required information, except the space provided for immunizations, which should only be completed after the immunization has actually been given. It is important to enter a unique registration number for each infant, which is the same number as the one on the immunization card. This way, for the next immunization, it will be easy to locate the infant’s entry in the Registration Book.

Do not create a new entry in the register each time the mother brings the infant for immunization. Ask the mother for the immunization card and look for a corresponding entry in the register. If the immunization card is not available, ask the mother the age of her infant and details of the first immunization to help you locate the infant’s entry in the Registration Book.

For every new infant who has never been immunized, create a new entry in the register and complete a new immunization card. For an infant who has come to your Health Post for the first time, but has received immunizations in another health facility, create a new entry in the register, ask for the immunization card and mark on the register the immunizations that the infant has already received.

Remember to record the vaccine dose and lot number in your Vaccine Stock Register (see Study Session 5).