Officials at Machinga District Hospital (DHO) have raised concern over resistance by men to embrace modern contraceptive methods saying this is contributing to rapid population growth in the district.

Machinga District Family Planning Coordinator, Chrissy Chamveka, said for instance, from January 2020 to August this year, the hospital has only performed one vasectomy procedure which is a set-back.

Chamveka attributed this to polygamy.

“Majority of men in the district focus much on their next marriage and plan to have more children. This reasoning bars more men from accessing permanent contraception like vasectomy,” she said.

Chamveka added that this is putting women at risk as most of them are giving birth almost annually.

The facility has been using men to influence fellow men to under-go vasectomy but the campaign is meeting resistance.

“We tried to use men to influence fellow men but it seems we still have a long way to go to achieve this as culture is also negatively contributing towards this,” Chamveka said while adding that at the moment they want to use chiefs to preach the message to their masses.

As of 2020, Machinga had a population of about 800, 000 people with an average of 26, 000 live births annually.