WHO-raised team develops guidelines for ‘IVF’ in Africa

A team of experts raised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has developed Fertility Guidelines especially on the practice of In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF)/Assiated Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) in Africa.

President African Fertility Society (AFS), Prof Oladapo Ashiru, in a press release, yesterday, the WHO experts hadon September 4, 2015, in Geneva, Switzerland, completed a week long meeting, making evidence-based recommendations on fertility care and research.

Ashiru, who is also the joint pioneer of IVF technique/test tube baby in Nigeria, said the recommendations made will inform and support the development of WHO Fertility Guidelines.

He said the WHO guideline will close the gap in the standard of fertility care and assisted reproductive technology regulation missing in Nigeria and most of Africa. “Areas covered by the world experts during the working consultations at the WHO Department of Reproduction and Research include glossaries of terminologies, acceptable standards of practices and research questions,” he said.

Dr. Sherly van Poel of the Reproductive Health and Research said: “The meeting is a milestone development in closing the gap in the explosive new knowledge necessary to promote access to quality, safe and responsible fertility care worldwide.”

The Africa region was representedat the ground-breaking meeting by Ashiru and Dr. James Olobo-Lalobo of the African Fertility Society.

Ashiru, who chaired one of the sessions said: “The long awaited change in fertility mind set of the African will now begin to change for ever. The withering childless African woman blamed, for far too long, for the infertility of any cause should at last begin to expect an improved quality of life as the bravado men climb down and calm down in the face of evidence-based fertility recommendations made.”

Dr. James Olobo-Lalobo of Uganda remarked: “Right now, Uganda is geared to the implementation phase of the WHO Fertility Guideline through multi-stakeholder involvement, creating fertility awareness, embedding patient-friendly regulation and promoting related research. …Tomorrow must be better than today….this is the definition of hope for every childless couple should expect.”
At the end of the meeting Professor Ashiru thanked WHO for the initiative and commended participants for working long hours throughout the whole week to generate a document that will invaluable in reproductive health services.

He seized the opportunity to invite the WHO Human Reproduction Group to the conference of the Association of Fertility and Reproductive Health of Nigeria, and the mini-symposium of African Fertility Society in Lagos from September 24th to 26th 2015 at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island.