UNFPA Supplies COVID-19 Update

Halima Umubyeyi is a health worker who often participates in Kasha's community outreach programs. Kasha is an e-commerce company that enables confidential purchases of health care products, including contraceptives, pregnancy tests, and HIV oral self-test kits. Given the stigma frequently associated with requesting these products, this confidentiality facilitates access to sexual and reproductive health information and counseling, particularly for youth. Kasha holds community outreach programs to sensitize people to its confidential services.

As the world’s largest procurer of donated contraceptives, UNFPA Supplies is committed to ensuring that essential supplies reach where they are needed, especially by marginalized and vulnerable women and adolescent girls. Support for supply chain management and logistics information systems over many years remains fundamental to health systems strengthening in the 46 programme countries.

For women and girls, young people and couples, provision of information, and voluntary family planning counselling and services, including a choice of quality contraceptives, is a human right and is lifesaving. During the COVID-19 pandemic response access to sexual and reproductive health services remains essential.

COVID-19 is already causing disruptions in family planning services. UNFPA estimates that 47 million women may lose access to modern contraception if the situation continues for 6 months and could lead to nearly 7 million unintended pregnancies.