The World Health Organizations first strategy on reproductive health was adopted Saturday by the 57th World Health Assembly (WHA). Reproductive and sexual ill-health accounts for 20 per cent of the global burden of ill-health for women, and 14 per cent for men.
The strategy targets five priority aspects of reproductive and sexual health: improving antenatal, delivery, postpartum and newborn care; providing high-quality services for family planning, including infertility services; eliminating unsafe abortion; combating sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, reproductive tract infections, cervical cancer and other gynaecological morbidities; and promoting sexual health.
– Unsafe sex is one of the biggest risks to our health today, largely as a result of acquiring sexually-transmitted infections, such as HIV/AIDS. Reproductive and sexual health touches the lives of everyone, everywhere, says Joy Phumaphi, Assistant Director-General of Family and Community Health at WHO.
– It is fundamental to the social and economic development of communities, economies and nations, added she.
Each year, some eight million of the estimated 210 million women who become pregnant, suffer life-threatening complications related to pregnancy, many experiencing long-term morbidities and disabilities. In 2000, an estimated 529 000 women died during pregnancy and childbirth from largely preventable causes.
The strategy comes in response to a 55th WHA resolution requesting WHO to develop a strategy for accelerating progress towards the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other international goals and targets relating to improving reproductive health, notably those from the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994, and its five-year follow-up (ICPD plus 5).
Three of the eight MDGs are directly related to reproductive and sexual health, namely, improving maternal health, reducing child mortality and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
– The strong endorsement of this strategy by the WHA represents an unequivocal message that countries are committed to do all they can to achieve the goals and targets of the ICPD Program of Action adopted in 1994, says Dr Paul Van Look, Director of WHOs Department of Reproductive Health and Research.
– The Strategy gives our Member States and the Organization itself a clear roadmap on how we can work together in the coming years to achieve the ICPD goals, added he.
Kilde: www.who.org
