Global deal sealed to expand women’s contraception

Drug makers and philanthropic organisations have joined hands to increase access to family planning information, services and products for women in need in poor countries including Bangladesh.

Pfizer Inc, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the London-based Children’s Investment Fund Foundation jointly announced an agreement in New York on Thursday in a global press briefing connecting journalists around the world.

The bdnews24.com correspondent was connected online from Dhaka.

The agreement will see them expand access to Pfizer’s long-functioning injectable contraceptive, Sayana Press, for women in need in 69 countries.

This has been launched in line with the 2012 London Summit on family planning when the global community pledged to provide additional 120 million women in those countries with “voluntary access” to family planning information and services by 2020.

Estimates suggest that more than 200 million women in developing countries want to delay pregnancy or prevent undesired births but are not using any method of contraception.

The latest Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) showed that 82 percent of couples having two children did not want more and the rate was 90 percent among those who have three or more children.

Most of them complete childbearing in their twenties with two decades of reproductive life in hand. But the survey found only 8 percent of them use long-acting or permanent methods of family planning, effective ways of protecting pregnancies.

Injectable contraceptives are a widely used family planning method among women in developing countries where the lifetime risk for death due to a maternal cause can be as a high as one in 15.

But in many developing countries a woman must depend on a skilled health worker at a clinic or health post which is not available in remote and hard-to-reach areas.

Sayana Press could help fill this gap.

This is long-acting, reversible contraceptive with an all-in-one prefilled, single-use and non-reusable injection system that eliminates the need to prepare a needle and syringe.

The use of this delivery system allows the contraceptive to be administered by health workers to women at home or in other convenient settings.

Each dose prevents at least 13 weeks of pregnancy.

Sayana Press has been approved by regulatory authorities in the European Union and in a number of ‘family planning 2020’-focused countries including Bangladesh.

However, it is not approved or available for use in the US.

Pfizer will sell $1, or Tk 77.30, per dose to the “qualified purchasers” like the PATH, the DFID, UNFPA, USAID who will ensure it reaches to the poorest women at reduced or no cost.

“Pfizer saw an opportunity to address the needs of women living in hard-to-reach areas, and specifically enhanced the product’s technology with public health in mind,” John Young, President of Pfizer Global Established Pharma Business, said in the press briefing.

Chris Elias, President of Global Development Programmes at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said they were “proud to be part of this innovative public-private collaboration”.

This will help more women around the world – even in remote areas – plan their lives and their futures, Elias said.

Micheal Anderson, Chief Executive Officer at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFE), said this partnership expanded the choice of affordable contraceptives.

“We believe this will further support CIFE’s mission of enabling more women and children to survive and thrive”.