ArticleSexual and reproductive health matters2024
Access to assisted reproductive technologies in sub-Saharan Africa: fertility professionals' views.
Article in Sexual and reproductive health matters, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Systematic review of challenges and prospective recommendations of medically assisted reproductive technology in developing countries.Frontiers in reproductive health · 2025Pooled it
- Infertility service availability, geographic accessibility, and use: results from linked facility-female cross-sectional data in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Niger, and Uganda.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- A cross-sectional survey of service delivery for infertility in Uganda: gaps, opportunities and a way forward.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Institutional barriers to assisted reproductive technology access in rural South Africa: a qualitative study of medical officers' perspectives.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- What to expect when you want to be expecting: time-to-pregnancy expectations and anticipated worry and help-seeking among a nationally representative survey of women in Uganda.Reproductive health · 2025Article
- FERTILITY CARE IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES: Training in assisted reproduction in South Africa.Reproduction & fertility · 2025Article
- Barriers to assisted reproductive technology (ART) services in Ghana: a countrywide cross-sectional quantitative survey of fertility health workers and women with infertility.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Outcomes and complications of pre-assisted reproductive technology hysteroscopic evaluation and treatment: a cross-sectional study at a Nigerian teaching hospital.Contraception and reproductive medicine · 2025Article
- FERTILITY CARE IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES: Public sector access to medically assisted reproduction in South Africa: a case study.Reproduction & fertility · 2025Review
- Global burden of female infertility attributable to sexually transmitted infections and maternal sepsis: 1990-2021 and projections to 2050.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Now is the time to introduce new innovative assisted reproduction methods to implement accessible, affordable, and demonstrably successful advanced infertility services in resource-poor countries.Human reproduction open · 2025Article
- Reproductive health at crossroads: progress and challenges since the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo.China population and development studies · 2025Article
- Male Factors Associated With Success Following Assisted Reproduction Technology Among Infertile Couples in Ghana.American journal of men's healthArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Across sub-Saharan Africa, there remains disagreement among local expert providers over the best ways to improve access to assisted reproduction in low-income contexts. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted between 2021 and 2023 with 19 fertility specialists and 11 embryologists and one clinic manager from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda to explore issues surrounding access and potential low-cost IVF options. Lack of access to ART was variously conceptualised as a problem of high cost of treatment; lack of public funding for medical services and medication; poor policy awareness and prioritisation of fertility problems; a shortage of ART clinics and well-trained expert staff; the need for patients to travel long distances; and over-servicing within the largely privatised sector. All fertility specialists agreed that government funding for public sector assisted reproduction services was necessary to address access in the region. Other suggestions included: reduced medication costs by using mild stimulation protocols and oocyte retrievals under sedation instead of general anaesthetics. Insufficient data on low-cost interventions was cited as a barrier to their implementation. The lack of skilled embryologists on the continent was considered a major limitation to expanding ART services and the success of low-cost IVF systems. Very few specialists suggested that profits of pharmaceutical companies or ART clinics might be reduced to lessen the costs of treatments.
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Registered trials
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