According to a report published in April 2023 by the World Health Organization (WHO), infertility affects approximately 17.5% of the adult population worldwide, with no major disparities between countries. This report highlights the extent of the problem of infertility on a global scale. Explanations.
What is infertility?
L’infertility of a heterosexual couple is defined as the absence of pregnancy after 12 to 24 months of full, regular sexual intercourse without contraception. After a year, between 18 and 24% of heterosexual couples do not see a pregnancy started. We must distinguish between infertility and sterility, which is the complete inability of a heterosexual couple to have a child. While infertility can be reversible, sterility is permanent and can only be assessed a posteriori, at the end of reproductive life.
Infertility is therefore a decline in fertility which can have different causes, physiological (age) or pathological (genital diseases, infections, etc.):
- Female causes in about 1 in 3 cases;
- Male causes in about 1 in 3 cases;
- Mixed causes.
In about 15% of cases, no fertility problem is found in either the man or the woman. We speak then unexplained infertility.
Infertility, a worldwide phenomenon
In France, according to Health Insurance data, approximately one heterosexual couple in seven consults for an infertility problem and approximately 10% of couples follow a infertility treatment. What about globally? The recent report published by the WHO reveals that approximately one in six adults is affected, in all regions of the world. Indeed, if most health problems are associated with a clear geographical distribution, infertility seems to affect all regions of the globe and all countries of the world in a similar way.
Infertility is a major public health issue worldwide and at similar levels regardless of the socio-economic level of the country. For the WHO, there is therefore an urgent need to increase access to affordable, high-quality fertility care for all couples who need it. These treatments include:
- THE fertility checkups to highlight and understand the causes of declining fertility;
- Access to ART techniques (Medically Assisted Procreation) or AMP (Medical Assistance to Procreation) to enable couples to realize their conception and parenthood project.
Better access to assisted reproduction techniques to fight against infertility all over the world
While infertility affects all countries in the world in the same way, access to care is very different from one country to another, both in terms of quality of care and in terms of costs. In the majority of countries, ART techniques remain almost exclusively the responsibility of patients, which limits their access to many infertile couples and creates real discrimination between couples. In France, ART techniques can be covered under certain conditions, depending on the situation of the couples.
This report provides an overview of the prevalence of infertility in the world over the period 1990-2021. However, experts still deplore a lack of data in certain regions of the world, or certain countries. Such an inventory is essential to define the needs for care and infertility supportto facilitate access to care for all infertile couples around the world.
Estelle B., Doctor of Pharmacy
Sources
– Understanding infertility. AMELI Health. www.ameli.fr. Accessed April 6, 2023.