Patna: The State Health Society, Bihar (SHSB), in collaboration with UNICEF, organised a state-level orientation and training programme on U-Mentor (Monitoring and Mentoring Application) in Patna on Tuesday, as part of efforts to strengthen monitoring and mentoring under the Routine Immunisation programme.
The government-owned digital platform is intended to make supportive supervision more structured and data-driven, helping health officials identify programme gaps, track corrective measures and improve immunisation performance.
Bihar has already established a substantial U-Mentor user base. According to the state presentation, 3,019 district-level supervisor accounts have been created across all 38 districts, along with 22 state-level accounts.
Immunisation coverage shows improvement
The rollout comes amid a significant improvement in Bihar’s immunisation performance.
The number of districts reporting 95% or higher Full Immunisation Coverage (FIC) increased from 19 in April 2026 to 33 in July 2026. By July, no district had an FIC below 90%.
At the block level, the number reporting 100% or higher FIC rose from 227 in April to 341 in July.
The state is now seeking to strengthen monitoring of missed and dropout children, improve data quality and ensure that gaps identified during field visits are followed up with timely corrective action.
Focus on missed children and vaccination gaps
The training brought together District Immunisation Officers, data entry operators, state health officials and representatives of UNICEF, WHO, UNDP and other development partners.
Sessions covered Bihar’s immunisation progress, HPV vaccination, U-WIN-based immunisation coverage, use of the U-Mentor application and financial guidelines.
Dr S.P. Vinayak, State Immunisation Officer, Bihar, said the improving coverage figures needed to be accompanied by stronger tracking of missed and dropout children and better-quality data.
He emphasised the need to improve MR-1, MR-2 and HPV vaccination coverage, and said U-Mentor should be used not merely for reporting but to help supervisors identify field-level gaps, mentor frontline workers and resolve operational bottlenecks.
UNICEF stresses human role alongside technology
Monika Oledzka Nielsen, Chief Field Office, UNICEF Bihar, congratulated the state government and SHSB on the progress made in immunisation.
She stressed that technology would be effective only when the information generated through U-Mentor is translated into mentoring, problem-solving and follow-up at the field level.
Supervisory visits, she said, should help frontline workers improve their skills and address gaps rather than become routine reporting exercises.
Dr S. Siddhartha Shankar Reddy, Health Specialist, UNICEF Bihar, provided an overview of U-Mentor and its role in strengthening monitoring and mentorship under Routine Immunisation.
Hands-on training for health officials
The programme included a live demonstration of the application, followed by hands-on sessions covering user addition and editing, monitoring of session sites, completion of digital formats and interpretation of key performance indicators.
Participants also reviewed Routine Immunisation coverage based on U-WIN data and discussed financial guidelines.
The implementation will follow a cascading capacity-building model. State-level trainers will provide technical guidance and lead orientation programmes, while district trainers will support the rollout and build user capacity at the district level.
Block trainers will subsequently provide handholding, field mentoring and troubleshooting support.
The workshop concluded with a commitment from SHSB, district teams, UNICEF and other development partners to strengthen regular use of U-Mentor across Bihar.
Officials said the emphasis would be on using digital monitoring to improve the quality of supervision, identify missed opportunities and ensure timely corrective action so that eligible children receive their recommended vaccines on schedule.
