Ulcer tablet key to halting excessive bleeding after birth

By Rawlings Otieno

Doctors have found a new way of reducing maternal mortality after discovering that a normal pill used to treat ulcers can be effective in stopping excessive bleeding after birth.

The Kenya Obstetrical and Gynecological Society and an American NGO Wednesday announced that they have started a push to popularise the use of the drug, which is called misoprostol.

The tablets have been in use in Kenya since the 1970s, but have only been administered to patients suffering from stomach ulcers. But now doctors have discovered that the pill, which comes in a dosage of three tablets, can reduce excessive bleeding or postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) by 50 per cent by shrinking the uterus and, thereby blocking the blood vessels that cause bleeding.

Venture Strategies Innovations Associate Medical Director Nuriye Hodoglugil and Doctor Joseph Karanja dispay the misoprostol pill during the launch in a Nairobi hotel Wednesday. [PHOTO: ANNE KAMONI /STANDARD]

Trials for the drug have been conducted by the Kenyan gynecologists in partnership with Venture Strategies Innovations in two districts for a period of six months.

95 per cent effectiveness

The project, which involved administering three tablets of misoprostol after birth to women in rural areas of Kitui and Maragua, was also supported by the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation.

The distribution of misoprostol tablets was done at antenatal care visits and by community midwives who assist women in these rural areas to give birth. The project recorded impressive 95 per cent effectiveness for women who give birth at home.

According to Prof Joseph Karanja, Co-Advisory Principal Investigator and Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Nairobi, this new drug is accessible to women who give birth at home in the rural areas, who cannot access proper medical care during birth.

All healthcare centres

"The current medication to treat excessive bleeding is through oxytoxin injections, which require assistance by a trained health care provider, which is normally not possible for the rural women who gives birth at home," said Karanja.

The misoprostol tablets, he said, will soon be available in all healthcare centres at the retail price of between Sh11 and Sh30 per tablet.

"Since a woman is required to take three tablets after the placental birth, she will be required to spend at most Sh90 to save her life from excessive bleeding."

Easy to use

‘With more than 56 per cent of births in Kenya taking place at home, and the rates even higher in rural areas, misoprostol tablets offer a safe, effective, affordable and easy to use solution to this leading killer of Kenyan women," said Dr Zamia Qurush, the Co-Advisory Principal Investigator of the project and senior lecturer in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Nairobi.

The key stakeholders of this project will today have a dissemination meeting with the Ministry of Public Health and sanitation to discuss the findings and the rolling out of this drug to the public. It has been used successfully in the USA and in the Scandinavian countries.