World Contraception Day (WCD) takes place annually on September 26. The WCD Coalition sponsored by Bayer HealthCare and of which PSI is a member, shared a framework to support awareness and access to modern contraception. From the Framework:
In spite of progress in recent years, contraceptives remain out of reach for many young people worldwide, resulting in millions of unplanned pregnancies and abortions each year. The WCD Coalition believes that women, men and adolescents are more likely to thrive and live full and healthy lives if they have access to accurate, unbiased education about sexual and reproductive health. The WCD Coalition calls on governments, community leaders, healthcare providers and educators to help young people build contraception into their plans. It calls on global and national family planning and reproductive health communities to focus on the following four priorities:
1. Knowledge is power. Addressing the lack of knowledge of contraceptive methods available – from short acting methods to LARC – by improving age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education and information for young people and making the information more widely available.
2. Practising safe sex saves lives. Ensuring that young people have access to high-quality, confidential sexual and reproductive health services so they are equipped with the knowledge and resources they need to make smart, educated decisions about their sexual health care.
3. Sex is not just about reproduction. Addressing myths and misconceptions about sex and contraception to em- power young people to talk to their healthcare providers and partners about sex and to use contraception without fear of prejudice or disrespect.
4. Equality and empowerment are key. Tackling gender inequality and empowering and educating young women and men about their sex and family planning rights and responsibilities.
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Spotlight on PSI
Ingrid Idalia Montes Alvarado had tried just about every family planning method she knew about and could get hold of. She and her husband used condoms, and Ingrid tried different forms of hormonal short-term contraceptives but experienced side effects each time. And each time she got pregnant.
“Each child is beautiful. They are all so beautiful,” says Ingrid. “But when one gets sick, sometimes you don’t have what you need to take care of them. Sometimes there’s not even enough bread or water to give them.”Ingrid and her husband are far from alone. An estimated 33 million unintended pregnancies each year are a result of contraceptive failure or incorrect use.
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Global Health and Development Beat
Hillary Clinton announced a $600 million plan to encourage enrolment of girls at secondary schools worldwide, in the face of security and access problems in the developing world.
The World Bank on Thursday announced it would give another $170 million to help West African countries contain the spread of the Ebola virus, nearly doubling its total contributions to fight an epidemic that has killed nearly 3,000 people.
Sierra Leone announced it will seal off three districts to stem the spread of Ebola.
The spread of Ebola seems to have stabilised in Guinea, one of three West African states worst-hit by the disease, but a lack of beds and resistance in affected communities means its advance continues elsewhere, the WHO said.
A Kenyan court has sentenced a 41-year-old nurse to death for assisting a young woman to get an abortion which killed her.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says millions of people in Africa who are facing violence, hunger and displacement are in desperate need of assistance. The humanitarian group is appealing to the international community for more help.
The US State Department named Nancy Powell, the former US ambassador to India, to coordinate Washington’s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
UNICEF welcomed the $347 million in new funding commitments to the “No Lost Generation Initiative, aimed at supporting children in Syria.
More than 1 million Iraqis are now receiving emergency food aid, the World Food Programme announced this week.
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Buzzing in the Blogs
David Olson argues that the global focus on Ebola should not sideline work on diseases that kill more people. He writes in the Global Health TV blog:
The ten leading causes of death in low-income countries in 2012, according to the WHO, were lower respiratory infections, HIV/AIDS, diarrheal diseases, stroke, ischaemic heart disease, malaria, preterm birth complications, tuberculosis, birth asphyxia and birth trauma, and protein energy malnutrition.
Global health journalist Sam Loewenberg tweeted that in Uganda alone, diarrhea kills almost 20,000 children every year. That’s the number of people the WHO thinks Ebola may eventually claim.
Earlier this month, Columbia University professor Chris Blattman tweeted that “Ebola is the Kardashian of diseases,” that it steals attention away from other global health priorities and that malaria, TB and HIV are what matters. [Note: For those who don’t know what a Kardashian is, it roughly translates to being famous for no substantive reason.]
He wrote a blog entitled “Does Chicken Little have Ebola?” and said this about Liberia: “… the fearful and overblown coverage will do more damage in the long run as businesses and NGOs pull out, or deals in the future never get done. I’d venture a guess that shaving a percentage point off GDP for the next few years will lead to more preventable deaths than the [Ebola] disease will in the end. This is disastrous for the country and it doesn’t help when organizations like MSF say it is ‘spiraling out of control.’”
Others strongly disagree.
I do not think that Ebola is as irrelevant as the Khardasians but I do worry that a singled-mind obsession with it could compromise other global health efforts. Indeed, that may be already happening.
Christine Sow, executive director of the Global Health Council, worries that Congress will use money already allocated for other global health concerns to pay for new funding to fight Ebola.
“Redirecting funds would be a shortsighted strategy to respond to a rapidly growing crisis,” she wrote in the Washington Post. “The U.S. government must provide funding and leadership commensurate with the Ebola emergency while maintaining the country’s place as a global leader in the fight on child and maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS.”
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Capital Events
Friday
12:30 PM – Guns, Drugs and Military Aid: Exploring Unintended Effects of US Policy in Latin America – CGD
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By Mark Leon Goldberg and Tom Murphy
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Disclaimer: Opinions presented in this email do not necessarily reflect the views of PSI.
