One in six people worldwide experiences infertility, says WHO

About one in six people worldwide experiences infertility, with comparable rates in poorer and richer nations, according to a World Health Organization report.

Speaking as the report was released on Monday night, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, said: “The report reveals an important truth — infertility does not discriminate.”

“The sheer proportion of people affected shows the need to widen access to fertility care and ensure this issue is no longer sidelined in health research and policy, so that safe, effective and affordable ways to attain parenthood are available for those who seek it,” he added.

The WHO researchers defined infertility as the inability to achieve pregnancy after 12 months of unprotected sexual intercourse. The report examined global records between 1990 and 2021, although the researchers noted that there were significant gaps in data quality worldwide and called on health authorities to improve reporting mechanisms.

James Kiarie, the head of the contraception and fertility care unit at the WHO, said the data showed no change in the prevalence of infertility over the time period studied. Previous studies carried out by the WHO in 2012 had also not shown any trend towards increasing rates, he said.

However, he cautioned, Monday’s report was based on data that was not complete enough to give researchers a reliable estimate of a trend. “Probably the jury is still out on that question,” he said.

The researchers noted that a range of factors including disease or age could cause infertility but said they did not have a good enough understanding of how these drivers played out.

The WHO report said the lifetime prevalence of infertility was 17.8 per cent in high-income nations and 16.5 per cent in low- and middle-income countries. However, assistive reproduction technology such as IVF remained “underfunded and inaccessible to many due to high costs, social stigma and limited availability”, the report added.

“Millions of people face catastrophic healthcare costs after seeking treatment for infertility, making this a major equity issue and all too often, a medical poverty trap for those affected,” said Pascale Allotey, director of sexual and reproductive health and research at the WHO. “Better policies and public financing can significantly improve access to treatment and protect poorer households from falling into poverty as a result.”