2023-04-05 10:52:18
It’s a health problem ” major “, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). One in six people in the world suffer from infertility. The figure comes from a report compiling more than a hundred studies on the subject, carried out in different regions of the world between 1990 and 2021 and published on Tuesday April 4.
In this first report on the subject for ten years, the WHO insists on the urgent need to increase access to affordable and quality care, recalling that infertility “can lead to major distress, stigma and financial hardship”.
A widespread problem
Beyond the figure of one in six people suffering from infertility, it is its consistency throughout the world that challenges. No distinction of social class or geographic location influences infertility significantly. According to the WHO, this disease affects 17.8% of the adult population of rich countries, and 16.5% of the population of low- and middle-income countries. “That’s what’s new in this report: the widespread nature of infertility,” deciphers Manon Vialle, sociologist, specialist in female infertility.
Social pressure would play a role. “In many countries, pregnancy remains essential to the perception of femininity and what the couple is”recalled Dr. Pascale Allotey, director of the sexual and reproductive health department of the WHO, presenting the report to journalists.
For Manon Vialle, it is not because infertility is evenly distributed throughout the world that the responses provided must be the same everywhere. “Globally, income disparities are huge. However, the cost of access to the various solutions to fight against infertility can be a considerable obstacle. » According to the sociologist, the responses to be provided to deal with this problem must also be adapted according to the geographical, social and cultural situation of each one. “Solutions to combat infertility can be thought out upstream – with risk prevention, in particular exposure to endocrine disruptors, or downstream – with assisted reproduction techniques”explains Manon Vialle.
A subject that remains taboo
However, it is difficult to come up with practical solutions, after the release of this report, the first of its kind, and which therefore does not yet draw a trend. The latter declines the medical or environmental causes of infertility. For the WHO, the problem is elsewhere. The main challenge is to break the taboo that infertility constitutes, in order to better understand it in the future. “The subject is still little studied and the solutions insufficiently funded”regrets Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the WHO, in the preface to the document.
This report is therefore also an opportunity for the WHO to call on countries to publish more data on infertility – finer, broken down by age and cause, to identify the risks and better prevent them.
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