The federal government has declared its readiness to scale up modern contraceptives to help in good family planning and to tame an impending population explosion in Nigeria.
The Minister of State for Health, Senator Adeleke Olorumibe Mamora, made the disclosure during the National Family Planning Media Campaign Launch organized by Rotary International held at National Press Center, Abuja, and also attended virtually on Thursday.
Mamora disclosed that “the Federal Ministry of Health has been partnering development partners to build synergy towards the provision of quality family planning information services to unintended pregnancies as well as for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS.”
According to him, the Ministry will soon introduce the Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate Subcutaneous Injection (DMPA-SC), which allows for self injection in hard to reach places.
“The Federal Ministry of Health is in the process of introducing and/or Scaling Up new family planning commodities to expand Nigeria’s Method Mix to allow for free choice.
“The Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate Subcutaneous Injection (DMPA-SC) which has been formulated to allow for selfinjection.This is considered a game-changer in Nigeria’s Family Planning Landscape.
“It is indeed very useful for ensuring continuation subsequent doses in hard-to-reach areas as clients could be given some vials to take home after some training on its use,” he said.
He noted that family planning is an important intervention for promoting proper timing and spacing of pregnancies as well as assisting to achieve pregnancies where challenges exist.
“It also promotes maternal and child survival with a potential for reducing maternal and child mortality and morbidity by 30 per cent. In addition, a successful implementation is key to achieving the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” he added.
“As ‘part of Government’s efforts to provide a roadmap for family planning implementation as well as proper coordination, the FederalMinistry of Health revised the Nigeria Family Planning Blueprint (Scale Up Plan 2020-2024), which was developed in 2014 as a follow up to the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, to provide guidance for stakeholders for implementation of family planning in Nigeria.
“This important document spells out six thematic areas and their cost implications. So far many states have developed their State-specific Costed Implementation Plans and Annual Operational Plans to guide the implementation of family Planning in their domains,” he explained.
Mamora further hinted that “Nigeria adopted the Task Shifting and Task Sharing Policy in 2014 to address the acute manpower challenges in the country. Under this policy, rational distribution of tasks is undertaken to allow less qualified healthcare workers fre trai to undertake tasks they were not earlier allowed to perform, thereby freeing the more qualified ones to attend to other more demanding tasks.”
