Bayer HealthCare and USAID in partnership with Malawi on family planning
The Bayer HealthCare and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have launched an innovative Private Public Partnership with the Malawi government that will make the Microgynon Fe Oral Contraceptive accessible in the country.
The new initiative aims at bringing into the market affordable and effective family planning oral contraceptive which will help women who have a less financial base.
The objective of the Contraceptive Security Initiative is to enable women and couples to carry out conscious family planning at an affordable price.
“We have observed that there is an increasing and unmet need for family planning products and with this initiative, we want to implements an innovative approach to face these challenges.
“It provides oral contraceptives at affordable prices for women and men with middle income in developing countries,” said Chief Technical Advisor in the Ministry of Health Dr George Nga Ntafu
The initiative has been launched in Ethiopia as the first country in December 2010 followed by Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Malawi with an aim to expand the initiative to up to 11 Sub-Saharan countries
by 2014.
Ntafu said the new contraceptive will help increase the availability and affordability of the services in the country.
According to Ntafu, about 73 percent of married women and those cohabiting are those who highly demand for the contraceptives.
“Apart from the availability and affordability, the initiative will also target those who would not want to spend long times on the lines in public hospitals,” he said.
Although the country is registering high numbers of women going for contraceptives, the total fertility
rate still remains at 5.7 percent.
“This is very unfortunate taking into consideration that rapid population growth do increase pressure on public resources but we are optimistic that soon the fertility rate will be going down,” said Ntafu.
According to Deputy Health Office Chair for USAID in Malawi Lilly Banda about 74 percent of women who use contraceptives access these family planning measures through the government facilities which
supply all the modern method used with 6 percent using private clinics.
Microgynon Fe wil be distributed at an affordable retail price of K400 in Unichem and Pharmamed pharmacies in the country.
So far, Bayer HealthCare has supplied 450 000 Microgynon Fe oral contraceptive family planning pills with 1. 600 outlets and has so far trained 1.500 pharmacists in the six countries which it has rolled out its services.
The Bayer HealthCare is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech materials. It is one of the world’s leading, innovative companies in the healthcare and medical products industry and is based in Leverkusen, Germany.
With a global workforce of 55, 300 employees and represented in more than 100 countries, the Bayer HealthCares’s aim is to discover, develop, manufacture and market products that will improve human and animal worldwide.
Through Social Health Care Programs (SHCP), the company aims to provide access to medicine to those in need in less developed countries with a focus on reproductive health, tropical and infectious diseases, and innovative access to medicine programs and donations.
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