Source: Daily Trust
Column - Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children (Part 2)

Last week I wrote on part one of this article and highlighted the significance of this commission as we commence descend to 2015, a year that is expected all countries to have reach Millennium Development Goals targets and with respect to health, MDG 4 and 5 and 6. I also mentioned that the commission is part of the "Every Woman Every Child" that is launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit in September 2010,

Every Woman Every Child aims to save the lives of 16 million women and children by 2015. It is an unprecedented global movement that mobilizes and intensifies international and national action by governments, multilaterals, the private sector and civil society to address the major health challenges facing women and children around the world. Every Woman Every Child puts into action the Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health, which presents a roadmap on how to enhance financing, strengthen policy and improve service on the ground for the most vulnerable women and children.

I concluded by reiterating that the commission on commodities is a welcome development and promise to showcase some evidence on commodities challenges across the glove as well challenges to the implementation of the planned recommendations.

One challenge that I already observed is some degree of pessimism among some readers that read the article, simply because Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan is a co- chair to the commission side by side with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway. It is the typical cynicism that characterizes many of us in Nigeria in believing that our leaders aren't committed enough at home, not to talk of holding an adhoc international responsibilities. I was quick to point out that the commission isn't aimed at solving the problem of shortage of essential commodities such as emergency drugs in hospitals; rather it is aimed at gathering information and proffering cogent recommendations that will be implemented by all of us, be it in government, civil society, private sector and the media.

In line with that, we have a responsibility to support the commission with information and what we perceived as ways to improve commodities for the survival of women and children. We don't need to interact directly with the commission to achieve that. We can do it via publications of articles, making presentations and making it public in a manner that they will know about its outcome and equally reaching out to them via emails.

The Commission will pursue the following outcomes:

1. Reducing financial barriers to access through social protection mechanisms, such as fee waivers, vouchers and social insurance, and global financial mechanisms, such as pooled procurement;

2. Creating incentives for international and local manufacturers to produce and innovatively package overlooked supplies;

3. Identifying fast-track regulatory activities to accelerate registration and reduce registration fees for a special list of products to encourage a focus on quality medicines.

Too often, affordable, effective medicines and health supplies do not reach the women and children who need them most. Based on available information from World Health Organization (WHO)

1. "Worldwide, 358 000 women die during pregnancy and childbirth every year.

2. Every year an estimated 7.6 million children die before their 5th birthday because of preventable and treatable conditions.

3. Pneumonia kills more children than any other illness - there are an estimated 156 million new episodes of childhood pneumonia each year resulting in some 1.8 million deaths.

4. Diarrhea is responsible for an estimated 2.5 billion cases and over 1.5 million deaths in children under five every year.

5. Some 215 million women currently have an unmet need for family planning in developing countries.

6. Meeting this unmet need would result in 53 million less unintended pregnancies and approximately 100,000 less maternal deaths every year.

7. Children in low-income countries are nearly 18 times more likely to die before the age of five than children in high-income countries."

Evidence of Commodities Shortage.

1. "A study in Bangladesh (2010) found that 45% of district hospitals and 62% of district level health centres reported not having oxytocin in stock. (Oxytocin is recommended by WHO as a priority medicine against post-partum haemorrhage.)

2. A study in Malawi found that 46% of health centres never stocked magnesium sulphate (although 22% of these facilities stocked a substitute). (Magnesium sulphate is recommended by WHO as a priority medicine against severe pre-eclampsia and eclampsia.)

3. If all women wanting to avoid pregnancy used modern family planning methods, unintended pregnancies would decline sharply-by 71 per cent from 75 million to 22 million per year. In addition more than a third of all maternal deaths could be prevented annually.

4. Increasing coverage of antibiotics for pneumonia, and zinc and oral rehydration solution for diarrhoea would reduce childhood deaths from these two illnesses by more than 70%. Zinc and oral rehydration solutions for diarrhoea cost less than $US 0.50 per treatment dose."

The above mentioned evidence which were from selected few countries is equally applicable to many developing countries. In some places, Magnesium Sulphate is not only inadequate but not available. Another challenge foreseen in the implementation of agreed recommendations will be not fulfilling commitments especially by the developing countries. The International partners being led by USA and UK will surely commit and bankroll funding through short term projects to support countries in need. However we need to answer the question 'are the developing countries willing to commit available resources in an effective and efficient manner to address the gap of commodities for the survival of women and children?