The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday published, for the first time ever, global guidelines to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infertility, a condition affecting millions of people around the world.
“Worldwide, one in six people will face infertility during their lifetime. This issue affects individuals and couples in all regions and at all income levels — and yet, access to safe and affordable care remains highly unequal,” declared Dr Pascale Allotey, director at WHO’s Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health, to the press.
“Infertility has been neglected for too long,” she added, noting that the new guideline offers a unified, evidence-based framework to ensure fertility care is safe, effective and accessible to everyone who needs it.
According to the WHO, infertility is defined as the inability of a man or a woman to achieve a pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular, unprotected sexual intercourse.
The guideline includes 40 recommendations. They call for integrating fertility care into national health strategies, services and financing, strengthening prevention (e.g. prevention of sexually-transmitted infections, lifestyle changes), ensuring clinical pathways for diagnosis (both male and female), and making assisted reproductive treatments — from basic fertility counselling to advanced techniques like intra-uterine insemination and IVF — safe and accessible.
The WHO also emphasizes the need to provide ongoing psychosocial support, recognizing the emotional toll, stigma and financial hardship infertility can cause.
