BY DELISA THWALA
MBABANE– Desperate women are turning to illegal pharmacies and suppliers for birth control.
Although preliminary data has not been released, many experts and government doctors fear that access to legal and safe contraceptives is likely to worsen.
In addition, some women have sought to access unsafe backstreet contraceptive pills some are allegedly sold around town in make shift pharmacies or by certain groups on social media platforms, likely Facebook.
A doctor stationed at the Mbabane Government Hospital, on condition of anonymity and avoiding breaking patient, doctor confidentiality, said more and more women were being admitted and treated due to the said back street contraceptive methods they use.
“The problem is the counterfeit pills being sold on the street, illegal pharmacies. No one is educating these women and young girls about the pills they are buying to avoid falling pregnant,” said the doctor.
In addition to that, he said the most misused contraceptives that have deadly side effects and could possibly lead to cervical cancer were ‘pink pill’ and ‘Diane,’ and any other pill that comes with no instructions or name written on it.
Another doctor practicing in Manzini, Dr. Sindi Dlamini- Simelane, said the information and campaigns around family planning was shallow in the country. She said the people who needed the information the most were not located around town.
“ We have women in rural areas who want to stop having children but do not have enough education, of course they are going to settle for the piece of information they pick from social media and friends,” said Dlamini.
In addition she said as a result, vulnerable communities are increasingly turning to the approximately to 50 fake online pharmacies, of which about 96 per cent operate illegally.
“At these pharmacies, no matter where you live, counterfeit drugs, including birth control and contraceptives, are always in stock. When people talk about counterfeit birth control and contraceptives sold on rogue websites, they are talking about medications or devices that do not work,” said the Doctor.
When elaborating she said these medications have severe side effects and are deliberately intended to look like other medications, these drugs (both branded and generic formulations) are often intentionally packaged to pass as the real thing but may contain completely different active ingredients or simply do not contain enough active ingredients to work.
“In other instances, they could have contaminants or be repackaged expired products. The primary function of birth control pills is to prevent ovulation, the biological process in which the ovary releases a mature egg. The most common tablets contain a combination of estrogen and progesterone, to mimic what the body already does with these hormones when it stops ovulation,” said the Dlamini.
A nurse who is stationed at the Sexual and reproduction department at the Mbabane Government said contraceptive pills are meant to prevent or reduce chances of pregnancy but fully stated that the best contraceptive was a condom.
“Emergency contraception works entirely differently from the Pill: The hormones in Plan B prevent or delay ovulation from occurring, so there is no egg to meet the sperm, to work, the pills must be taken within 72 hours of unprotected sexual intercourse. None of these methods of contraception is an abortifacient and women should not rely on them,” said the nurse.
Meanwhile, a Korean Pharmacist who runs a Pharmacy shop around Mbabane town attested to selling the ‘pink pill’ and further mentioned that he always educates the customers on the pill.
When asked if he knew the dangers of the pill, he affirmed the question and said he knew but he was in business and women always came back no matter how many times they have been warned.
The Ministry of Health Principal Secretary, Dr Simon Zwane, said this year the plan was to use all the media houses to talk about family planning and use of contraceptives.
He further mentioned that community dialogues have been on-going including one that is going to take place this coming weekend at Baylor Clinic.
“Community care and community based organisations capacity to educate about family planning, capacity building for health workers which the first step has been to train partner mentors to be trainers thus the on-going training,” he said when explaining what the ministry is working on so far.
In his response, Dr. Zwane mentioned that third-party procurement as well as a tool to ensure the availability of the commodities to reduce stock-outs where clients may not take contraceptives because their preferred one is out of stock. “We want to expand the choice by making sure there are a variety of contraceptives. We also want to increase the availability of emergency contraceptives since at the current state they are not meeting the demand for women,” he said.
