Leicester researchers develop lifesaving kits for women in Asia at risk from post-abortion complications
University of Leicester researchers are behind a drive to provide lifesaving kits for women in India and Bangladesh who are at risk from complications following unsafe abortions during disasters.
Unsafe abortion and post-abortion complications are a leading cause of women’s illness and death worldwide. In low-and middle-income countries like India and Bangladesh, the risk of illness and death is heightened due to healthcare instability, supply-chain disruptions and devastating extreme weather events – all of which are made worse by the rapid progression of climate change.
To help prevent illness and death of women in the two nations, the University of Leicester’s School of Business developed and prototyped two kits to help them receive post-abortion care - funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Impact Acceleration Account (ES/X004732/1), ESRC Commercialisation Fund, and International Planned Parenthood Federation’s (IPPF) Innovation Fund and South Asia Regional Designated Fund.
Each kit contains lifesaving medicine, equipment, supplies, information, education and instruction materials to be used to treat incomplete or missed abortions and post-abortion complications during climate-induced disasters and humanitarian crises.
The contents of the kits can be sourced locally and pre-positioned at health facility level prior to or during a disaster and crisis, when normal healthcare systems might have broken down. The kit is portable and can be carried to emergency shelters.
Crucially, the kits are less expensive than the previous only option, a UNFPA’s Reproductive Health Kit 8, which is also complicated to procure and difficult to transport and store in a pre or post-disaster environment.
The project has been awarded £62,457 for 12 months from the ESRC/Arts and Humanities Research Council’s (AHRC) ARC Accelerate Programme to bring the kits to market.
The formulation of the Kits is informed by years of collaborative research in Bangladesh with Data Management Aid, icddr,b, Banga Bandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, International Planned Parenthood Federation – South Asia Region Office, Reproductive Health Services Training and Education Programme and the Directorate General of Family Planning – led by Professor Nibedita Ray-Bennett, a University of Leicester Professor of Risk Management, and Associate Director at the University’s Institute for Environmental Futures.
These novel kits have been successfully prototyped in Bangladesh, and showed significant cost reduction on existing options, full compliance with local regulations, and improved flexibility with multi-sized offerings to suit varying needs for different types of disaster-prone hard-to-reach facilities and terrains.
Professor Ray-Bennett said: “Many years of research are being operationalised in bringing lifesaving medicines and supplies to vulnerable women in need of treatment, incomplete abortion, missed abortion and post-abortion care management during disasters and crises.
“I am grateful to ESRC-AHRC for awarding the funds to see these kits become ready for integration into disaster management processes at the international organisation, state, regional and non-governmental organisational levels across Bangladesh and India.”
The initiative also supports the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 3 and Sendai Goal A, both of which are designed to reduce maternal disaster deaths by 2030.