Kazakhstan lacks sperm donors

It will be impossible to find a healthy sperm donor in Kazakhstan in 20 years, if the current ecological situation doesn't improve, Tengrinews.kz reports, citing Vadim Polumiskov, In Vitro Fertilization Center deputy director. There is already a tangible shortage of healthy men at present, according to the fertility specialist. “A candidate sperm donor has to have ideal semen analysis. He should be under 35-y.o., with no bad habits or chronic diseases. He should have his own children. So, the candidate must be in ideal health. However, we don't have many such men at present. It is men who experienced infertility in 40-45% of cases in married couples. Several years ago these figures were much lower,” Polumiskov said. According to the experts there are many reasons for men's health deterioration. “Men are very sensible and they quickly respond to different factors. Food quality decreased significantly in the past several years. The goods that are sold at our markets are usually grown with the use of a large number of artificial fertilizers. This has an impact on the reproductive performance. The same is true for meat. We often have no idea what is inside the products that we eat every day. This problem is especially acute among youth. It may seem surprising but 50-y.o. men often have better semen analyses than 20-y.o. ones nowadays,” Roman Bezrukov, In Vitro Fertilization Center urology and andrology doctor said. There are only 12 staff sperm donors in the official list of the Center in Kazakhstan. It is a tragically small number, according to the experts. “The matter is not in the quantity of sperm. We have got enough sperm at present. The problem is that we need to offer a greater choice. We have ethnic Russians, Kazakhs, Jew and Uighur among our donors. However clients of another nationalities also approach our Center regularly. In particular we have lack of Koreans, Turks, Chechens, Caucasians, Germans. It doesn't mean that we don't need more Russians and Kazakhs. We need a larger sperm bank to meet the demand at present. A staff donor may supply the sperm once every five days. The donor is paid 7 000 tenge ($47.3) for one portion of semen,” Bezrukov said. Meanwhile, there is no lack of women, who are ovum donors at the Center. “It is a different story about women. The selection system is not so tough, and women have less psychological fears. Everybody knows about in vitro fertilization thanks to the Internet. We don't have any problems with the quantity of egg cells,” Polumiskov said. The first Kazakhstan IVF baby turned 15 in autumn 2011. According to the experts' data 6.5 thousand children were born with the help of assistive reproductive technologies in Kazakhstan as of the end of 2011.