Cheap IVF option to tackle Africa’s 30% infertility rate

DOCTORS are getting ready to introduce a cheap in vitro fertilisation procedure across Africa, where women are sometimes ostracised as witches or social outcasts if they cannot have children.

Millions of dollars go into family planning projects and condom distribution to prevent pregnancies in Africa, but experts said that more than 30% of women on the continent are unable to have children. An estimated 80 million people in developing countries are infertile.

“Infertility is taboo in Africa,” said Willem Ombelet, head of a task force at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology looking into infertility in developing countries.