Wa promotes new female condom
The Wa Municipal Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has launched the new version of the female condom to help promote its use for the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and Sexual Transmitted Diseases (STD).
The launch which was done in partnership with other development partners was under the theme “Use female condom for double protection “.
Madam Beatrice Kunfa, the Municipal Director of the GHS, said the decision by the region to launch the new female condom was justified by the low female condom usage, coupled with the many misconceptions that characterize the usage of family planning devices in the Municipality.
“The re- launch of the female condom in the Upper West Region and Wa Municipality for that matter, seeks to reverse this negative trend. It is also to promote the use of female condoms including other family planning devices as an essential tool for the prevention of unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections”, she said.
Madam Kunfa said maternal morbidity and mortality was high in the region and efforts to reduce unnecessary deaths among women included the improvement of family planning acceptor rate adding that if women were not pregnant then there was no risk of them dying from pregnancy or during delivery.
She said the new female condom (FC2) was developed to take the place of FC1, which provided the same safety and efficacy during use but at a lower cost.
She said FC2 had the same design and instructions for use as the original female condom and the material had been changed to improve affordability, while maintaining the high quality, reliability and features of FC1.
Madam Kunfa said the promotion of family planning in the Municipality would greatly help to accelerate the progress towards the achievement of the millennium development goals 4 and 5.
She said men should also disabuse their minds from the notion that family planning was the sole responsibility of women saying women could not impregnate themselves.
Madam Kunfa urged men to insist that their female partners used female condoms, if they were not ready to use the male condom adding that community members would be trained to visit all parts of the Municipality to distribute the condoms to improve access to the service.
She appealed to women to insist on the use of the female condom to protect themselves saying, “If it is not on, it should not be in”.
Source: GNA