A small under-the-skin contraceptive device will be made available free of charge to all women from next week. A [s]Health24[/s] report quotes [b]Health Minister Aaron Motsaoledi[/b] as saying that this was part of ‘the biggest family planning programme South Africa has ever seen’. The tiny sub-dermal contraceptive device, about the size of a match, would be available to women at public hospitals around the country this week, the minister said. The device, which had to be inserted by a medical professional under the skin of the upper arm, conferred protection from pregnancy for three years.
The [b]Department of Health[/b] is also to begin targeting non-s exually active girls with the roll out of the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine. [s]SABC News[/s] reports that girls in all public primary schools will be vaccinated to prevent cervical cancer. The report says statistics indicate that cervical cancer is the second biggest killer of women in the country after breast cancer. Also, HIV positive women are five times more likely to get cervical cancer. Around 600 children are diagnosed with cancer in SA every year and experts have warned that this could just be the tip of the iceberg. They say many parents either ignore the symptoms or are unaware that their children are suffering from the disease.
[link url=http://www.health24.com/Lifestyle/Contraception/News/Free-under-the-skin-contraceptive-for-all-SA-women-20140221]Full Health24 report[/link]
[link url=http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/f5580f8042f9d23eb00cbf895990ad13/Police-urged-to-thoroughly-probe-KwaMashu-hostel-murder-20141802]Full SABC News report [/link]