Tanzania would cut down its current rate of maternal mortality deaths if it scales up the national Conceptive Prevalence Rate, First lady Salma Kikwete has said.
First lady Salma Kikwete
She made the call in Dar es salaam yesterday, noting that with the current maternal mortality deaths being 454 out of 100,000 births, they could be significantly reduced if reproductive health makes further inroads across parts of the country.
The current contraception prevalence rate is 27 per cent and that the government has pledged to lift it to 60 per cent by 2015, a responsibility that needs timely funding. Mama Salma was officiating at the UMATI National Executive meeting in Dar es salaam, where she was also given lifetime membership by the organization.
Her call comes for the first time, the government has recently said it would make a budgetary allocation from domestic resources for family planning activities in the 2013/2014 national budget to be tabled in Dodoma in June.
The decision is based on the government’s goal to make Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) grow at more than three per cent annually so that the country attains a 60 per cent CPR by 2015, according to the Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Hussein Mwinyi.
He has said in the past that the government did not initially allocate funds because it was leaving it for the basket fund. He said Tanzania was committed to increase contraceptive prevalence rate to 60 per cent by 2015, exuding the government’s determination to increase family planning users from 2.1 million (2010) to 4.2 million by 2015.
Yesterday, Mama Salma said efforts by UMATI with other stakeholders in the health sector continue to do the work based on the existing reality of reproductive health needs especially for women and children. She said UMATI’s centre of “mama wadogo” at Temeke since 1986 is a clear testimony of its role in supporting young girls further their education. The programme has supported 5,500 girls so far.
She said that some young girls expelled from schools due to pregnancy had been able to subsequently go on with their education including secondary school and higher learning institutions. She said UMATI had spread education on cervical cancer to over 3,448 girls during a pilot project. She said such efforts contribute significantly to government pledges during the London Family Planning Summit in July, last year to extend these services to more women.
By ORTON KIISHWEKO, Tanzania Daily News