Mozambique: Covid-19 pandemic hit family planning coverage

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Mozambique: Covid-19 pandemic hit family planning coverage

7:48 CAT | 26 May 2021

Photo: O País

Family planning coverage in Mozambique in 2020, fell by 32 per cent across the country, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, though the first quarter of 2021 was marked by an encouraging 41 per cent recovery.

Though the third National Survey on Prevalence, Behavioral Risks and Information about HIV/AIDS (INSIDA 2020) will only be completed in November, providing accurate data on sexual and reproductive health, the head of Family Planning at the Ministry of Health, Alda Mahumane, said on Tuesday in Maputo that routine data gathering shows an increase in coverage.

The Deputy Minister of Health, Lidia Cardoso, who addressed the opening ceremony of the regular National Technical Meeting for Family Planning, said the gathering is being held at a time when figures about the health of women and children, across the country, remain of critical concern.

Quoting figures from the 2015 INSIDA, Cardoso said the data indicated that one in every two teenage girls, aged between 15 and 19, has delivered a child or is pregnant for the first time.

“The same data show that the number of children per woman remains very high, indicating that, on average, a woman has at least five children in Mozambique,” she stressed. She added that of every two deaths one is among women aged between 15 and 24 years, and is related with pregnancy, childbirth and abortion.

This gloomy picture, she warned, shows that the health of women and children should never fall out of sight. It was very well known that unwanted and early pregnancies, many of which end up in abortions, can be prevented if there is greater awareness about the importance of the family planning and availability of contraceptives.

“At this meeting, we have to check the progress we have achieved so far and the challenges we face”, she said, ”so that we improve our actions on the ground, to give women and girls across the country the chance to choose the most modern contraceptive method.”

Cardoso added that health staff must be fully prepared to answer effectively and satisfactorily the demands for family planning services, through the creation of innovative solutions to overcome the lingering challenges, especially those brought by Covid-19

Source: AIM