WASHINGTON — Yesterday, U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging the State Department to take swift action to protect women and infants from the deadly impact of the Ebola outbreak in eastern Africa. The Senators called on the Trump Administration to promptly use congressionally appropriated funds for voluntary family planning programming to distribute already purchased family planning commodities and back the UN Population Fund’s (UNFPA) health clinics operating in the region.
In the letter, the Senators emphasized the catastrophic toll of Ebola on pregnant women and warned that conflict and displacement in Ituri and North Kivu—in addition to increases in gender-based and sexual violence and transactional and survival sex—are exacerbating the outbreak.
“Ebola during pregnancy is catastrophic, with a nearly 100 percent fetal loss rate and catastrophic maternal mortality risk due to severe hemorrhaging. By providing women with the option to voluntarily prevent unplanned pregnancies and to protect themselves from transmission of the virus and have access to clinics, the United States can prevent further deaths of women and the cruel and certain death of any fetus exposed to the virus,” wrote the Senators.
