Establishment of sentinel sites network for contraceptive and abortion trends, needs and utilization of services in Zika virus affected countries

Overview

Zika virus infection during pregnancy can result in many adverse events such as fetal deaths or newborn with congenital abnormalities including microcephaly and other neural irregularities.

Due to these harmful outcomes of pregnancy associated with the Zika virus, we can expect to see a change in the type and scale of demand for family planning and safe abortion services in areas affected by the Zika virus.

The monitoring and reporting capacities of the local health clinics in these areas could benefit from the introduction of infrastructural improvements necessary to establish a sentinel site network. Through these sites, the WHO will collect data on the situation from local health professionals to get real time information from the population group and inform MoH to act accordingly to mitigate the consequences of the Zika virus outbreak in a localized and culturally appropriate way.

The objectives are to establish a sentinel sites surveillance network for reporting on uptake and utilization of contraception and safe abortion care services; to strengthen monitoring, and data quality assurance in the selected sentinel surveillance sites; and finally to assess the contraception and safe abortion care service utilization trends in the affected sites on a regular basis.