STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden faces an acute shortage of sperm for assisted pregnancies as future donors avoid hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic, stopping inseminations in large parts of the healthcare system and increasing waiting times by years.
“We have semen up. We have never had so few donors as during the past year, ”said Ann Thurin Kjellberg, head of the reproduction unit at the University’s hospital in Gothenburg.
The shortage has meant that the waiting time for assisted pregnancies has increased over the past year from about six months to an estimated 30 months, possibly longer, possibly longer, doctors familiar with the matter told Reuters.
“It’s stressful that we can not find a clear time or date for the treatment,” said Elin Bergsten, a 28-year-old mathematics teacher from southern Sweden.
Two years ago, Bergsten and her husband learned that he could not produce semen, and the couple immediately applied for assisted pregnancy. She had to have her second cycle of fertilization before her treatment was delayed indefinitely due to the deficiency.
“It’s a national phenomenon,” Thurin Kjellberg said. “We have run out in Gothenburg and Malmo, they will run out in Stockholm soon,” she adds, naming the three most populous areas of the country.
In addition to public healthcare providers, there are also private clinics in Sweden that can work around shortages by buying sperm from abroad.
But treating assisted pregnancies there often costs as much as 100,000 Swedish kronor ($ 11,785), making it unaffordable for many. Assisted pregnancy is free in Sweden’s national health service.
According to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, the Nordic countries and Belgium have the highest support rates in the world in terms of the availability of cycles per million inhabitants.
According to Swedish law, a sperm sample can only be used by a maximum of 6 women. Most sperm donated in Sweden have reached this legal capacity, which means that in many areas assisted pregnancies are only available to women who have previously used a specific sperm sample.
Margareta Kitlinski, who manages the reproductive unit at Skane University Hospital, the largest clinic in Sweden, said that it takes about eight months to process a donor due to the many tests, and that many samples cannot become viable donations as a result. of common problems. in freezing point.
“If there are 50 men contacting you, only half can be donors,” Kitlinski said.
Some Swedish regions have encouraged social media to encourage potential male donors, but with divergent results. Meanwhile, the shortage remains persistent.
“We have to go on TV and tell Swedish men to come forward,” Thurin Kjellberg said.
($ 1 = 8.4850 Swedish kronor)
Reporting by Colm Fulton; Edited by Niklas Pollard and Jan Harvey