News

July 2023. The registration of the first LNG EC pill has already been approved by Honduras authorities in July. According to local news outlets, the spokesperson from the Health Regulation Agency said that the Agency “recognizes the importance of this medicine for women’s reproductive health, which is why rigorous criteria have been established to ensure…

July 2023. The Key Indicators Report of the 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, published in January, provides new data on EC use among currently married women and sexually active unmarried women from different regions of the country. The survey was implemented by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) in collaboration with the Ministry…

June 2023. Health authorities in Japan announced the piloting of a new modality to dispense emergency contraception (EC) pills through pharmacies. Until now a prescription from a gynecologist was required to buy an EC pill. Only LNG EC pills are available in Japan. The pill and the consultation with the doctor (which is mandatory) cost…

April 2023. As of this month, in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) some brands of LNG emergency contraception pills (ECPs) are available free of cost directly from pharmacies. This gratuity scheme is run by British Columbia Pharma Care (the publicly funded program thathelps residents pay for eligible prescription drugs, and certain medical supplies…

April 2023. In Belgium a new reimbursement scheme was put in place in April 2020, that made EC pills available free of charge to women of any age. Before that, EC pills were reimbursed when sold with a prescription to patients under 21. See Belgium for more details. Three years into the implementation of this…

April 2023. In December 2022, the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition (RHSC) and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) published The Family Planning Market Report. This report leverages shipment data from 17 participating suppliers to analyze the public-sector contraceptive market in 83 low- and middle-income countries. The public sector is defined as those purchased by public…

April 2023. In Belgium, the Fédération Laïque de Centres de Planning Familial (FLCPF) recently launched a new website to inform individuals that need contraception after sex, of the choices available to them and guide them through. The website includes a short and anonymous on-line questionnaire that helps decide what are the optimal postcoital contraption methods…

March 2023. In Peru, on March 30 the Constitutional Court finally issued its ruling regarding the case of universal access to emergency contraception (EC) pills. The Court ordered the Ministry of Health to continue providing free-of-cost LNG EC pills nationwide, through the public health network. According to the Court press release, the magistrates considered that,…

March 2023. Since 2010, USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program – Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM), collects data on national contraceptive security policies. In collaboration with ECEC and ICEC, GHSC-PSM just published a brief that highlights trends and recent findings from survey data specific to emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs), including:  The data shows that overall,…

March 2023. Sexual education is not mandatory in Spain, and the educational system does not guarantee the provision of adequate sexual education. As a consequence, the knowledge of contraceptive methods is riddled with myths and hoaxes, some of them very deep-rooted.  The Spanish Society of Contraception (Sociedad Española de Contracepción) works to dispel theses myths…