Health Official: Mexican Adolescents Account for 19 Precent of Pregnancies Angeles Cruz Martinez - La Jornada
go to original March 17, 2014

In Mexico, it shouldn’t be happening that a woman gets pregnant due to lack of information or lack of access to contraception methods. It’s happening now, especially among adolescents, a sector in which the unmet demand is 25% and represents 19% of pregnancies in the country, according to Pablo Kuri Morales, Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion [of the Secretariat of Health].

Therefore, from this year on, the Secretariat of Health will be centrally purchasing contraceptives and will send them to the states. There will no longer be excuses for the shortage, the Secretariat said.

Until 2013, economic resources were transferred to the states and Mexico City, who took charge of acquisitions; but, according to the secretary, the program is one of the four essential public health inputs, so the federal government must guarantee their existence. The other three are antiretroviral drugs for HIV/AIDS, vaccines, and insecticides.

In the case of contraception, the centralized purchase is part of the national strategy in the Health Sector Plan 2013-2018, in which the area of sexual and reproductive health emphasizes adolescents and vulnerable populations (indigenous).

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Brittany Doss

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