Infertility affects one in six people globally, according to a report from the World Health Organization, which urged countries to do more to help people conceive, Bloomberg reported.
Researchers found little difference between high, middle and low-income countries in the report published Tuesday. This crisis has left many people struggling with mental health issues or financial hardship, according to the UN agency.
The WHO defines infertility as the failure to achieve a pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. Researchers were unable to pinpoint the main drivers of the problem, which could stem from the reproductive system of men or women, due to a lack of clinical data.
“It can heavily affect the life of people suffering from it,” Dr Pascale Allotey, director of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research at the WHO, said in the statement.
WHO experts said there is not enough evidence to make a judgment on whether infertility is rising or not. Previous estimates published by WHO in 2012 also did not find evidence of increasing infertility rates.
The researchers, who reviewed studies on infertility from 1990 to 2021, praised countries such as Morocco, Indonesia and Argentina for the recent changes they made in term of coping with infertility and funding its treatments. The WHO plans to publish guidelines later this year on prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infertility.
