London — Up to three million women in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia could soon benefit from a simplified, more accessible contraceptive injection, it was announced at the Family Planning Summit, in London last week (11 July).
The partnership behind the new injection comprises the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the US Agency for International Development, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, pharmaceutical company Pfizer, and the international health non-governmental organisation PATH (the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health).
This public-private partnership, established in July ahead of the summit, plans to produce 12 million doses of the contraceptive between 2013 and 2016.
The drug, Depo-SubQ Provera 104, is a version of the well-established intramuscular Depo-Provera contraceptive injection - a synthetic form of the female hormone progesterone, which is injected in the buttock or upper arm muscle.
Imanol Echevarria, a senior director at Pfizer, said that although Depo-Provera has proved to be a popular contraceptive - the injection lasts three months and is generally well tolerated - its delivery has always presented challenges.
"We can get the product to a rural health centre fairly easily, but getting it to remote villages - that 'last mile' - is a challenge: the injection comes in a small glass vial, it is heavy, fragile and must be administered by a qualified nurse," he said.
New packaging will allow the contraceptive to be delivered by less skilled health workers, thus potentially reaching more women.
The active compound is the same, but the drug is packaged in an injection system called Uniject, a prefilled, disposable plastic bubble, administered subcutaneously - a health worker simply squeezes the bubble to inject the contraception under the skin.
Uniject was initially developed by PATH for use with vaccines, but feedback from the field lead to the broadening of its application for use in antibiotic and contraception delivery as well.
For women in remote parts of the developing world, this could mean the end of a return trip to the health clinic every three months - sometimes a day's walk or more.
Partners are also developing innovative educational materials for health workers, including a mobile phone application and an instructive animation, to enable more efficient administration of the drug.
The project's joint funding arrangement means that the contraceptive will be available at affordable - although still undisclosed - prices, the partnership announced.
A number of countries have expressed interest in licensing the product, including Senegal.
Awa Marie Coll-Seck, Senegal's former health minister and PATH board member, announced at the summit that Senegal plans to roll out the contraceptive, as part of the country's commitment to "making family planning a top priority".
Coll-Seck said that the Senegalese government planned to more than double the country's coverage of contraceptives (the percentage of women who are practising - or whose sexual partners are practising - any form of contraception) from 12 to 27 per cent by 2015.
According to the partnership, other countries keen to adopt the drug include Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Uganda.
However, any adoption is subject to regulatory approval. A partnership meeting in October will finalise details of the roll out.
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Bill Gates is known for his support of “Population Control” and a number of Web Sites have shared the audio of his belief that vaccination programs can help reduce populations in the world. So this pledge for contraception’s should not be surprising.
Although the idea of using contraceptives somehow saves lives, the beginning of contraceptive use in America can be traced to Margaret Sanger, who was jailed around 1917 for distributing contraceptives within poor populations. She believed all minority populations should be sterilized. After her book, “The Pivot Of Civilization”, opposition against her Nazi ideals was seriously challenged and she began to try another approach by creating “Planned Parenthood” as a means of saving lives.
The idea contraceptives somehow saves lives is very interesting, but opposition to the use of contraception has been going on since the early 1800′s.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the last few years has been under scrutiny by a number of organizations and church groups, for its financial support of vaccinations programs, contraception support, in addition to the support and distribution of Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) Food products and agriculture placed in Third World Cultures.
We each can draw our own conclusions to the meaning of this Pledge.
John
Ref: 1. The Pivot Of Civilization, Margaret Sanger 2. Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against Scientifically Organized State, G.K. Chesterton, and Michael W. Perry 3. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing And The Psychology Of Genocide, Robert Jay Lifton 4. Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality Since 1800, Jeffery Weeks 5. DVD, Genetically Modified Foods, Panacea or Poison? 6. DVD, Vaccines, What CDC Documents and Science Reveal, Dr. Sherri J Tenpenny