Infertility affects one in six people worldwide, warns WHO report

About one in six people in the world suffer from infertility, shows a World Health Organization report released on Tuesday (April 4). “And this, regardless of where they live and the resources at their disposal”, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pointed out in the preface to the document. This is, according to the WHO, a real “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”highlighted Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The urgent need for access to affordable care

The report does not look at the medical, environmental or other causes of infertility, or how it changes over time, but provides a first look at its prevalence by analyzing all of the relevant studies from 1990 to 2021. “Infertility affects millions of people” and yet, underlined the director of the WHO, “the topic is still understudied and solutions remain underfunded and inaccessible to many due to high costs, social stigma and limited availability”.

“The sheer proportion of those affected shows the need to expand access to fertility care and to ensure that this issue is no longer sidelined in health research and policy, so that safe ways , effective and affordable ways of achieving parenthood are available to those who want them”he asked.