The Ministry of Health of Burkina Faso is working to improve access to quality sexual and reproductive health services by operationalizing the Policies, Standards, and Protocols (PNP) recently updated by the Directorate of Family Health. In this regard, WHO has provided technical assistance to revising the National List of Essential Drugs with the integration of misoprostol and mifepristone indicated for the safe Termination of Pregnancy service in accordance with national laws. Emergency contraception was also newly included in the National List of Essential Drugs in accordance with the national policy that considered the WHO Essential Drug List (2019).

To support health service providers in the use of the drugs that have been newly included in the National List of Essential Drugs, the National Agency for Pharmaceutical Regulation (ANRP) in collaboration with the Family Health Directorate of the Ministry of Health and WHO organized an orientation session for thirty-five clinicians and pharmacists from five national university hospitals.

This workshop introduced participants to the Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) Policies, Standards and Protocols of the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Burkina Faso 2019 edition; gave an overview of the revised National List of Essential Drugs and the newly integrated SRH drugs in 2020 (indications, mode of action, dosage, pharmacovigilance); and provided a discussion on the modalities for scaling up and use of these drugs.

As a next step, Burkina Faso plans to assess medical products’ availability for abortion in support of the Global Combipack Initiative (GCI) lead by WHO headquarters. This assessment aims to document the specific experience and regulatory landscape regarding the availability and use of medical abortion products and services to develop specific recommendations to increase the availability of mifepristone-misoprostol in affordable and quality co-packages.