Around one in six people worldwide suffer from infertility, raising the urgent need to increase access to high-quality, affordable care, the World Health Organization argued on Tuesday.
“One in six people in the world is affected by the inability to have a child at some point in their lives. And this, regardless of where they live and the resources at their disposal,” stressed the Director General of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in the foreword to a new report.
According to the WHO, it is a true “major health problem”, which affects 17.8% of the adult population in rich countries and 16.5% in low- and middle-income countries.
“This report, the first of its kind in ten years, reveals an important fact: infertility does not discriminate,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
About 17.5% of the adult population
The report does not look at the medical, environmental, or other causes of infertility, or how it changes over time, but it does offer a first look at its prevalence by analyzing all relevant studies from 1990 to 2021.
It shows that “infertility affects a large part of the world’s population” as the problem affects approximately 17.5% of the adult population.
“Infertility affects millions of people” and yet, emphasized Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “the subject has not yet been well studied and solutions remain underfunded and inaccessible to many due to high cost, social stigma and limited availability”.
“The large proportion of those affected shows the need to expand access to fertility care and ensure that this issue is no longer neglected in health research and policy, so that safe, effective and affordable ways of achieving parenthood are available to those who want them. them,” he asked.
“Breaking the silence”
Infertility is, according to the WHO, “a disease of the male or female reproductive system, defined as the inability to achieve a pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. This situation can lead to great distress, stigma, and financial hardship.
WHO calls on countries to scale up solutions for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infertility, including assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization.
“We want to make sure we break the silence on infertility by making sure it is included in sexual and reproductive health policies, services and financing,” Dr. Gitau Mburu of the WHO told reporters.
Although the new report presents data attesting to the “high global prevalence” of infertility, it highlights the lack of data in many countries, including Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Asia.
Source: BFM TV
