Africa-Press – Lesotho. Women in Lesotho can now roll up their sleeves to take the jab of the recently rolled out Sayana Press. This is per the statement released by the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFP) earlier this week. Sayana Press is a self-administered, long-term female contraception. The jab has recently been added to the family
planning methods in the country. According to the statement, the UNFPA has supported training of over 500 Community Health Workers (CHW) in the districts of Mokhotlong and
Quthing on administering this family planning method. “Mokhotlong and Quthing are the highest districts with unmet need for family planning, that is, where people would like to access family planning but for one reason or another
are not able to, at 48% and 64% respectively,” reads the statement. It further says, post the training of CHW, most women are now able to self-inject and the
self-injection is administered after every three months. The UNFPA’s Reproductive Health Commodities Security Coordinator Tšeliso Elia Masilo said at the recent 2Gether4SRH Regional
Programme Steering Committee (RPSC) meeting, capacitating the CHW was carried out to bring closer the family planning services to hard –to- reach areas
thereby improving their access thereof at time of emergencies such as Covid-19. He said that to the continuity of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) services during the pandemic,
Lesotho explored several approaches such as training the CHW to dispense the kits to less skill intensive family planning methods like pills and condoms and
strengthened the integrated outreach services with the specific attention on the catchment areas on facilities which do not offer the family planning services.
The SRHR Coordinator further added that UNFPA further supported adaptation of the Reproductive, Maternal, New-born, Child, Adolescent Health and Nutrition (RMNCAH&N)
Guidelines during Covid-19 which allow for the flexibility of the multi-month dispensation of pills to those women that are on pills to reduce congestion at
the health facilities. The Family Planning Manager at the Ministry of Health (MoH) Mangose Sithole Tsotetsi was quoted thus: “The Role played by Village Health
workers in distribution of sayana press is very important and the support from UNFPA in the procurement of additional Family planning commodities including
Sayana also goes a long way to relief Government funding that is negatively affected by COVID-19. ” UNFPA Representative to Lesotho Dr. Marc Derveeuw has commended
the government’s effort to procure family planning commodities. He underscored the importance of family planning, adding that it is at the ‘heart’ of the
UNFPA’s mandate as it endeavours to address the need for family planning. So far Lesotho is reported to have reached about 196 538 clients with the Family Planning services during the last year, 2020 and 4 368 with the Sayana Press.
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