New technologies are the future of contraception - experts

Nov 14, 2018

During the 2018 international conference on family planning in Kigali, speakers said there was need to invent approaches that match the needs of the changing society.

Creating new technologies for contraception could help stop unwanted pregnancies, experts say.

During the 2018 international conference on family planning in Kigali, speakers said there was need to invent approaches that match the needs of the changing society.

Their concerns come in the wake of a new report that shows that far too many women are having children at the time they do not want to.

The Family Planning 2020 report (FP2020 ) shows that the ambitious goal of having 120 million additional users of contraception will not be achieved. Although there is a growing number of women accessing contraceptives, the report shows that the 69 focus countries have only registered 46 million more users (30 % increase) since 2012 when the targets were set.

In Uganda, 2.8 million women are currently are using contraceptives. However, there is still a high unmet need of 32.6%, which contributes to unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions.

Dr. Chris Elias, the president of Global Development at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said new technologies could help accelerate uptake especially among young people.

"We need to work more closely with the youth. Family Planning for them is a fall off. We need to design programs for them.

 
"We have got to invest in new technologies of contraception. We have many things we need to  do. We can't keep doing what we are doing the same way," Elias said.

He cited an example of the Sayana Press, a new self injection contraceptive method, which he said had been embraced by young people.

The FP2020 report shows that more than 300,000 doses on Sayana Press were administered in 2015 pilot in four countries, namely; Uganda, Burkina Faso, Niger and Senegal.

Uganda and Niger registered the highest proportions of Sayana administered to women younger than 25.

Elias attributed this to the nature of the new contraceptive method.

"The subcutaneous injection is easy to use and discreet," he stated.

In a separate session, Roseline Achola, a programme analyst at UNFPA Uganda called for the need to ensure that  a range of  methods were available so that women could make informed choices.

" We call it method-mix. We need a variety of methods available to meet the varied and changing needs of individuals and couples including short term, reversible and permanent methods," said Achola.

She regretted that some contraceptive methods had become a source of domestic violence because they were not discreet.

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