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Home » Press Center » VSI Newsroom » Ghana launches misoprostol for PPH
October 10, 2010

Ghana Health Service and VSI launch Ghana’s first program to save mothers’ lives with misoprostol

(CAPE COAST, GHANA) – To address a leading killer of mothers in Ghana, postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), or excessive bleeding after delivery, on September 29, 2010, Ghana Health Service and VSI launched the country’s first program introducing distribution of misoprostol tablets—effective in preventing this bleeding—to pregnant women at antenatal care (ANC) visits in four districts.

The program will reach women living in Sene, Upper Manya Krobo, Birim South, and Komenda/Edina/Eguafo/Abirem districts with messages about safe childbirth, bleeding after delivery and the role of misoprostol in PPH prevention. Since the program districts span three regions comprised of very rural areas as well as geographic conditions that render transportation difficult, giving the tablets directly to women will mean they have protection against bleeding even if they are unable to return to the health facility to deliver.

To launch the program in Cape Coast, VSI staff and Professor Sydney Adadevoh and Dr. Joe Taylor trained 23 health care providers from the District Health Management Teams of each district as trainers on the use of misoprostol for prevention of postpartum hemorrhage. Following the training, each team returned to its district to train the participating antenatal care providers on birth preparedness education and the use of misoprostol. Traditional birth attendants, a key resource to pregnant women in Ghana’s rural communities, were then oriented by the trainers on how to provide educational information to women about PPH, where they can access the tablets and the importance of delivering in a health facility. 

The Ghana Health Service supports integration of misoprostol into its safe motherhood efforts and Ghana first registered misoprostol tablets for this use in 2008. The project is intended to generate evidence to determine whether distribution of misoprostol at ANC is a safe, feasible, effective and acceptable way to address postpartum bleeding in Ghana as the country works to reduce maternal mortality as called for in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

VSI and partners have also introduced this method of reaching expectant mothers in Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya, and Mozambique, as each country considers misoprostol a key technology for reducing maternal deaths due to excessive bleeding.

Press coverage: "Stakeholders urged to educate the public on safe motherhood," September 3, 2010