Illustrative photo (Source: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – It is necessary to switch the population policy’sfocus from family planning to population and development, which is considered apolicy revolution to thoroughly deal with population issues and improve the population’squality, said an official.
Nguyen Van Tan, Deputy General Director of the General Office forPopulation and Family Planning, suggested that in the 2016-2020 period, Vietnamshould concentrate on some major issues including maintaining a reasonablebirth ratio, while effectively control the in-born gender imbalance.
The health sector should also pay greater attention to reproductivehealth care and increase pre-born and infant screening.
At the same time, Vietnam should optimize its advantage of the “goldenpopulation” to develop high-quality human resources in parallel with increasingthe private sector’s and individuals’ engagement in caring for the elderly, headded.
The official also stressed that the population family planning work isconsidered an important part of Vietnam’s national development strategy and oneof the country’s leading socio-economic issues, as well as a basic factor toimprove the life quality of each individual, family and the whole society.
Statistics from the office showed that in the 2011-2015 period, theratio of using birth control methods in Vietnam exceeded 76 percent. The ratioof using condom among the population rose to 14.7 percent in 2013 from 10 percentin 2006, while the using of contraceptive pills reached 17.6 percent from 13.2percent. This helped Vietnam maintain its replacement birth ratio.
Private enterprises also played an important role in popularisingcontraceptive methods to the community. In the 2011-2015 period, they soldnearly 10 million contraceptive pills, nearly 80 million condoms and nearly200,000 coils.
According to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), accessing safe andvoluntary birth control methods is one of the human rights.
In 2016, contraceptive methods supplied by the UNFPA prevented 11.7million cases of unwanted pregnancy, 3.7 million unsafe abortions, and about29,000 maternal deaths.
The ratio of using modern contraceptive methods rose to 64 percent in2016 from only 36 percent in 1970.
However, there are still about 225 million women in the world, including12.7 million of adolescent girls, mostly in 69 poorest countries in the globe,have yet to access safe and effective contraceptive methods. Last year,maternal fatality was estimated at 303,000 cases.
This year, World Population Day (July 11) is themed “Family Planning:Empowering People, Developing Nations” with an aim to encourage greaterinvestment into family planning, contributing to improving people’s health andthe observation of women’s rights as well as the implementation of sustainabledevelopment goals.-VNA
VNA
