Millions of women could lose contraception access amid coronavirus outbreak

The coronavirus could lead to an unplanned baby boom.

An alarming new report indicates that more than 47 million women worldwide might not have access to birth control in the ensuing months of the COVID-19 outbreak. This could lead to 7 million unplanned pregnancies, warned the United Nations.

The United Nations Population Fund, which is geared to strengthening health systems, ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health, as well as delivering essential supplies to protect health workers, asserts that millions of women will be unable to actively family plan due to overburdened health systems that might also be suffering contraception limitations.

Some patients will also cancel medical appointments due to fears of contracting coronavirus, according to the report.

“The pandemic is deepening inequalities, and millions more women and girls now risk losing the ability to plan their families and protect their bodies and their health,” explained UNFPA’s executive director Dr. Natalia Kanem.

For every three months the lockdown continues, as many as an additional 2 million women might be unable to acquire birth control. More alarming, 31 million more cases of gender-based violence are to be expected to occur if the lockdown continues for at least six months, the report states.

COVID-19-related disruptions of programs aimed at halting female genital mutilation could lead to 19.2 million female cases over the next decade.

The outbreak also is expected to deter efforts to quell child marriages, potentially resulting in an extra 13 million underage unions between 2020 and 2030, according to projections.

As of Wednesday, more than 3.2 million global COVID-19 cases have been recorded, with nearly one-third of them originating in the U.S., according to disease tracker Worldometer. The worldwide fatality total has also exceeded 228,000.

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