Uganda registers milestones in reproductive health

By Gloria Nakajubi

ACCORDING to the Performance, Monitoring and Accountability 2020 (PMA 2015) survey, Uganda has increasingly registered significant milestones as regards to family planning services.

Key indicators such as contraceptive prevalence rates, modern methods contraceptive prevalence and demand satisfied by modern methods have since gone up compared to previous statistics.

The survey findings which are part of a five year project supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and being implemented by Makerere University School of Public Health indicates that more married women are using family planning services rated at 35.0% up from 27.2% in 2014.

The project that is running in 10 other African states paints a lustrous picture of the status of family planning in a country with one of the highest fertility rates in globally.

Uganda’s progress in particular aspects as compared to other states especially Nigeria where a similar survey is taking place puts it in an enviable category. 

While in one of the Nigerian states under survey registered a decline in contraceptive use between 2013 and 2014, Uganda has been seeing an upward trend.

More women according to the survey that covered over 4000 households across the country are seeking long acting contraceptives with figures rising from 4.7% in 2014 to 8.7% in the current year.

Public facilities which tend to be inefficient in most aspects of service delivery were found to perform better than their private owned counterparts as far as providing family planning services is concerned.

But equally so, injectables and male condoms which top the list of in stock family planning methods at public health facilities also top the list of the most used interventions.

The survey also shows a decline in the number of unintended births from 47.4% in the first round of the survey carried out last year to 42.6% in the current year. But more so, adolescent birth rate registered a decline from 47.4% in 2014 to 42.6% in 2015.

As health activists argue, these seemingly small figures are indicators of great milestones in the reproductive health journey especially for a country still shrouded with myths around family planning.

The success as Jackson Chekweko, the Executive Director of Reproductive Health Uganda said can be credited to the increasing sensitization and male involvement though a number of gaps remain unresolved.

“Male involvement is key in the success of family planning interventions but also cases of stock outs should be urgently handled,” he said.