Speeches Shim
While a global decline in HIV incidence from 1999 to 2009 was reported by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), the Philippines is one of seven countries where there was an observed increase of more than 25 percent for the same period. In the past five years, reported new cases have spiked among MSM and PWID.
In the Philippines, the Government’s 2011 Family Health Survey showed that maternal mortality increased from 162 to 221 deaths per 100,000 live births between 2006 and 2011. The unmet need for effective family planning (FP) services was a major contributor to the increase in maternal mortality.
MindanaoHealth is a five-year (2013-2018) United States Agency for International Development (USAID) health service delivery strengthening project implemented by Jhpiego-an affiliate of the Johns Hopkins University. It supports the Department of Health (DOH)-led scale up of high-impact services and client-centered information to improve child health and nutrition, to reduce maternal and infant deaths and to decrease the number of unmet need for family planning services, especially among the lowest wealth quintiles, and conflict-affected areas in Mindanao by increasing the uptake of integrated MNCHN/FP services at household level, in communities and at both public and private facilities.
The Philippines’ health statistics, particularly in the Visayas, show high unmet needs for quality MNCHN/FP services, especially among the vulnerable poor and geographically isolated families who comprise nearly one third of the total households.
The magnitude of TB problem in the Philippines has kept the country among the 22 high-burden TB countries, ranking 9th. The National TB Prevalence Survey in 2007 showed that 2.1 percent of new TB cases and 13 percent of re-treatment cases are drug-resistant (DR) tuberculosis, of which 3.9 percent are multiple drug resistant (MDR).
The United States Agency for International Development’s Integrated Midwives Association of the Philippines, Inc. (CMSU) project supports the implementation of the MNCHN Strategy, the Government of the Philippines’ strategy to achieve its 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce maternal and under-5 mortality.
The United States Agency for International Development’s Communication for Health Advancement through Networking and Governance Enhancement (CHANGE) is a five-year project that addresses the need for strategic and sustainable communication interventions that will generate increased demand for FP/MNCHN and TB services in the Philippines, and ultimately, contribute to the reduction of maternal and child deaths, TB prevalence, and increase in contraceptive prevalence rate.
The issuance of critical policies for FP/MNCHN and TB implementation under the Government of the Philippines’ Universal Health Care or Kalusugan Pangkalahatan and the significant increases in budgets of the Department of Health (DOH) have yet to significantly improve overall health outcomes. This can be attributed to difficulties in implementing interventions at scale.
Since 2008, ZFF has implemented leadership and governance capability building programs for health in various rural municipalities in the country. Assessment of ZFF’s initial cohort municipalities in 2012 showed decreases in maternal mortality using ZFF’s health change model, which regards leadership as key to equitable and effective local health systems towards better health outcomes.
In 2011, the United States Agency for International Development awarded the global five-year Systems for Improved Access to Pharmaceuticals and Services (SIAPS) Program to Management Sciences for Health. The program, implemented in more than 20 countries in Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, including the Philippines, aims to support partners to ensure the availability of quality pharmaceutical products and effective pharmaceutical services to achieve desired health outcomes.
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