“The ISP seeks to contribute to the reduction of the unmet need for FP by 50 percent that is from 13 percent to 6.5 percent and increase the contraceptive prevalence rate from 59 percent to 68 percent by 2020,” said Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, Principal Director of Preventive Services, Gibson Mhlanga.
He added that the programme would provide over 2.2 million Couple Years of Protection helping avert more than 800 000 unintended pregnancies.
According to the 2010-2011 Zimbabwe Health Demographic Survey about 211 000 women who want to avoid or postpone childbearing are not using any method of contraception and a reduction of this number by half could avert an estimated 780 000 unintended pregnancies, 110 500 unsafe abortions and 4 200 maternal deaths annually.
Mhlanga said the ISP is aimed at addressing four priority areas: family planning, cervical cancer prevention, gender-based violence prevention and response and HIV prevention.
Mhlanga said cervical cancer would be reduced by 25 percent.
“We will provide cervical cancer screening for more than 290 000 women and adolescent girls, target 200 000 male circumcisions for both adults and newborns, deliver HIV counselling to over 400 000 people, provide services for 7 000 survivors of sexual assault and rape and support the promotion and distribution of 64 million condoms,” he said. ISP is a four year programme that started in 2012 and has approximately $90 million in committed resources from the Governments of Britain, Ireland and Sweden.
Post published in: News