Nearly 30 percent of women that seek medical attention  at UTH’s gynaecology section have infertility issues. UTH Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology registrar Whyson Munga says infertility is a huge problem in Zambia.

Dr Munga said this on Wednesday on Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation’s Open Line programme discussing the planned introduction of fertility clinics countrywide by the Government. “Out of every 100 women that come to the hospital seeking help in the gynae section, about 30 of them have got infertility problems,” he said.

Dr Munga said medical personnel have been investigating causes of infertility in an effort to help women conceive.
“The investigations [into causes of infertility] involve both male and female. Those that are manageable, we have been able to handle them,” he said.Dr Munga said the causes of infertility are both primary and secondary.

“Primary infertility is where you have failed to conceive from the word go while secondary infertility is where later in life a woman fails to conceive,” Dr Bunga said.
He cited blocked fallopian tubes and failure to release the eggs due to hormonal changes as other causes. Dr Munga also said as women grow older, their fertility reduces. For men, low sperm count is among the causes of infertility.

“When a couple meets for the sake of conception, the man is supposed to release at least 15 million sperms per ejaculation but there’re some males who have less sperms while others do not have a single sperm but just semen,” he said.
Dr Munga said there is need to ensure that hospitals are equipped with advanced technology that will help address infertility, especially through artificial insemination.

Artificial insemination, which is not provided in Zambia, is the deliberate introduction of sperm into a female’s uterus or cervix for the purpose of achieving a pregnancy through vivo fertilization, other than by sexual intercourse. Dr Munga is confident the planned introduction of fertility clinics countrywide will help address infertility.

Two weeks ago, Minister of Health Chitalu Chilufya said Government plans to introduce fertility clinics in all provinces of Zambia in a bid to enhance reproductive health services. “We are hoping that this introduction will come with advanced centres for fertility where we will be able to go beyond the routine [fertility checks] that we have been doing,” Dr Munga said.

“Is it possible that we can harvest the egg, harvest the sperm and make the baby from outside and insert it in the women and ‘there she goes pregnant’,” Dr Munga said. He said the planned introduction of fertility clinics is timely and well meant. “The aim of the government is that we must advance with technology that even assisted fertility like artificial insemination should be done in public facilities,” Dr Munga said.