Authorities in Shenzhen, southeastern China, recently dismantled an illegal surrogacy network operating in a residential area where activities such as egg collection and embryo implantation were carried out, local press reported on Tuesday.
Police discovered a room on the second floor of a five-story residential building that appeared to be a packing and cleaning area, where surgical gowns hung and surgical kits were on the table containing instruments such as vaginal dilators, surgical trays and forceps.
The third floor contained a laboratory and operating room, with two rooms connected by a window, for egg retrieval and embryo transfer, authorities said.
Two working incubators were found in the laboratory, with four or five plates bearing different names.
Health surveillance agents and assisted reproductive technology experts cited by the newspaper guaranteed that the drugs, instruments and equipment found at the site were used for egg extraction, embryo implantation and other procedures used in surrogacy, a illegal practice in the Asian country.
A man named Liu, identified as the facility’s manager, was handed an “administrative fine,” according to the official Global Times newspaper.
In China, surrogacy is banned, as is single women’s access to assisted reproductive technologies such as egg freezing.
Source: DN
