By IANS,
New Delhi: Aiming to reduce unwanted pregnancy and better antenatal care (ANC) among rural women, India has distributed 65 million pregnancy test strips across the country.
“The scheme of distributing Pregnancy Test Cards (PTCs) was conducted in two phases across India. The first phase took care of 11 states and the next helped 17 states,” a health ministry official told IANS.
The programme addressed key issues like low percent of women starting ANC in first trimester due to late pregnancy detection, contraceptive provisions and high unsafe abortions due to late detection of pregnancy, the official added.
“The result has been outstanding,” the official added.
The details of the scheme, which was implemented in association with contraceptive major Hindustan Latex Ltd, will be released Friday. Hindustan Latex spent around Rs.10 crore (Rs.100 million) to roll out this scheme in two phases.
The official said the authorities distributed over 21.65 million PTCs in 2007-08, 21.73 million PTCs in 2008-09 and 21.74 million in 2009-10. In total over 65 million test cards were distributed among rural women in the last three years.
Authorities said the scheme was part of the National Rural Health Mission and the accredited social health activists (ASHA) were the key implementing authorities for this programme.