The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube Sunday News Reporter
A CLOSELY-KNIT clique of doctors and pharmacists has virtually legalised abortion, with pregnant women armed with prescriptions easily accessing an abortion inducing drug which is readily available at most pharmacies countrywide.
The drug, Misoprostol, is a prescription drug used to treat missed miscarriage, induce labour, prevent non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug-induced gastric ulcers, reduce postpatan haemorrhage maternal mortality and to induce abortion among other uses.
An investigation by this publication revealed that this medication is available in most pharmacies and can be accessed by women with a doctor’s prescription.
Abortion is illegal in Zimbabwe but can be done under special circumstances as specified by the law. According to the Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1977 a pregnancy can be terminated in cases such as rape and incest.
“A pregnancy may be terminated, where the continuation of the pregnancy so endangers the life of the woman concerned or so constitutes a serious threat of permanent impairment of her physical health that the termination of the pregnancy is necessary to ensure her life or physical health.
“Where there is a serious risk that the child to be born will suffer from a physical or mental defect of such a nature that he will permanently be seriously handicapped; or where there is a reasonable possibility that the foetus is conceived as a result of unlawful intercourse,” reads part of the Act.
However, it has since emerged that Misoprostol is a hit in the country with people, especially teenagers, parting with between $100 and $250 to get a prescription from doctors and eventually purchase it from pharmacies, where it is sold for just $5.
Women who spoke to Sunday News said it was easy to get a prescription from a doctor.
“I got a prescription from my doctors in Gweru. The pill is for pregnancies that are six weeks and below. I inserted the pill and started bleeding after two hours. It went on for about four hours and then it stopped,” a student from a Gweru college, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
The drug does not necessarily need to be administered by a medical practitioner but it simply has to be inserted through the private parts where it then triggers the evacuation of the embryo remnants through the female reproductive opening. This often appears as a heavy menstrual period.
“As pharmacists, it is difficult for us to control the drug because we operate according to doctors’ prescriptions. In this case, if one comes with a prescription letter, we have no room to question why they need the drug,” said a pharmacist who declined to be named.
Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care Dr Paul Chimedza said while Government was unaware that the drug was being used for abortion purposes they now had the challenge of coming up with a position as a matter of urgency.
“Truthfully, we were not aware that this drug is now being abused but I must agree that indeed in other countries it is used for such purposes but let’s not forget that in Zimbabwe this is illegal.
“This means we are now in a catch 22 situation, we now have to decide whether we ban this drug altogether but what of the positive uses because it has a whole host of other gynaecological-related conditions besides just the abortion. Doctors cannot just halt prescribing the drug because a patient will be in genuine need of it,” said Dr Chimedza.
The spokesperson of the Zimbabwe Medicines Control Authority, Mr Richard Rukwata, acknowledged that the drug was readily available in the market but said as an authority it was difficult for them to effectively control its use.
“That type of drug is prescription prepared for a wide variety of uses. For example, it’s uses include various gynaecological conditions, with the Ministry of Health and Child Care also recently discovering that it also reduces postpatan haemorrhage maternal mortality, it also prevents gastric ulcers among other uses.
“Yes we are aware that this drug can be used for abortion purposes but all we can hope for is that the pharmacists and doctors act responsibly, so that this drug is not abused. As an authority, I guess you see for yourself that it becomes difficult for us to physically strike a balance between the illicit and the rightful uses,” said Mr Rukwata.
He said while they continuously carried out monitoring exercises on pharmacies, their main hindrance was that they did not have any arresting powers.
“You must note that we have 1 500 products that have to be monitored. At the end of the day, it is not possible for us to keep all these drugs under check; ensuring that doctors’ prescriptions and pharmacists’ dispensing is in order. Therefore, we have to rely on the general public to tip us off when such is happening, then we can move in to address this problem.
“Further, since we do not have any arresting powers we have to engage the police so we can raid and monitor some of these pharmacies,” he said.
