Misoprostofor Maternal Health
When you save a mother, you save a community.
Misoprostol is a generic medicine with many uses in women’s health. Because of its tremendous promise to save mothers’ lives globally from the leading killers of excessive bleeding after childbirth and unsafe abortion and miscarriage, VSI is working create access to high quality misoprostol tablets. How do we create access to ensure women at the greatest risk benefit from misoprostol? We:
Ensure misoprostol is registered in a given country for specific obstetric/ gynecological use;
Encourage affordable prices;
Develop policies to enable its use by various levels of health care providers;
Support the tablets availability through both commercial and public routes;
Train those providers—especially those health workers who work in rural area; and
Conduct research to show the feasibility of alternate modes of distributing misoprostol at the village level.
Postpartum Hemorrhage
Dorothy lives in REGION, Tanzania—a VSI program area—and received misoprostol at her prenatal visit after hearing about the tablets on the radio. Pregnant with her third child, Dorothy works—belly swollen with child—in a field three miles from the nearest health center. When she went into labor she began walking toward the health center with her miso in hand. As they walked, she reminded her escorts that she needed to take the tablets immediately after she gave birth to her baby. As it turned out, the dirt road proved too long and the labor too fast and Dorothy gave birth on the side of the road. It was there on the earthen ground she took misoprostol to prevent the life threatening bleeding that takes the lives of an estimated 130,000 mothers globally each year. Because of our program with the Ifakara Health Center more women like Dorothy can feel the same comfort and security knowing they have the life-saving tablets to protect themselves—no matter where they deliver.
Registration
Registration is a key strategy for improving access to this life-saving drug in the countries where misoprostol is needed most: developing countries with high rates of home births unattended by skilled providers, and countries that witness tragic numbers of maternal deaths annually. Registration is an initial step to ensuring needed medicines can be imported, distributed, marketed and sold for a specific use.
[Registration Map]
In addition to providing technical support with the drug registration process, we assist governments in institutionalizing use of misoprostol for women’s health by incorporating it in important policy documents, including essential medicine lists, national clinical guidelines and training curricula for health care providers.
Training
We collaborate with local partners, especially medical professional associations, to train doctors, nurses, midwives and community-level health workers on the use of misoprostol tablets to prevent and treat this life-threatening condition. We work with local distributors in Africa and Asia and generic pharmaceutical manufacturers to establish south-south partnerships and ensure availability of misoprostol in both the public and private sectors at an affordable price.
Post-Abortion Care
It is estimated that around 67,000 women die each year from abortion-related complications, the equivalent of 13% of all maternal deaths (WHO, 2007). In many developing countries, complications of unsafe abortion constitute the second leading cause of maternal mortality after PPH (WHO, 2007).
At the invitation of leading medical professionals and ministries of health, VSI is also working to expand access to misoprostol as a component of post-abortion care (PAC). PAC is a package of services including treatment of incomplete abortion and miscarriage, counseling, and provision of voluntary family planning methods. Misoprostol is an effective means to save a woman’s life after she experiences complications from miscarriage or unsafe abortion, which is all too common in the countries where we work. In the countries where we are working in PAC in addition to PPH, we are similarly focused on registering misoprostol for this indication, institutionalizing misoprostol for PAC in policy documents, training appropriate levels of health care provider, and assisting our partners with distribution of the life-saving tablets. Misoprostol for Maternal Health
Misoprostol for Maternal Health
Misoprostol (or "Miso") is a generic medicine - a simple tablet - with many uses in women’s health. Due to its tremendous promise to save women’s lives, VSI provides technical and financial assistance to governments, nonprofit organizations and businesses to work together to bring these life-saving tablets closer to women who need them.
We do this by:
- Ensuring high quality misoprostol is registered for sale in developing countries*;
- Negotiating low prices;
- Planning for the tablets' availability through both commercial and public channels;
- Developing policies to enable their use by different kinds of healthcare providers;
- Training providers—especially those working in rural areas; and
- Conducting research to show the feasibility of alternate modes of distributing misoprostol at the village level.
Miso for postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) program >
Miso for postabortion care (PAC) program >
*VSI is a nonprofit organization and does not receive income from the sale of misoprostol.
