Is affordable and cost-effective assisted reproductive technology in low-income countries possible? What should we know to answer the question?

Abstract

Decision making on infertility treatment in low-income countries (LIC) assumes answers to quite a few questions: how should the infertility problem be defined? How often does infertility occur? What is the burden-of-disease of infertility? What is the income in LIC, and what can be spend on health care? How cheap should IVF be in order to be accessible to a considerable part of the population? With what alternative health interventions should infertility treatment be compared? How cost-effective should IVF be in order to compete with those other interventions? These questions will be discussed. The emphasis is on the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It is concluded that a place for ART in a health care package is not straightforward. Many of the questions are not or only partially answered. Moreover, cheap and effective ART has yet to be developed and tested. From the limited evidence available for each of the questions, it could be calculated that an IVF cycle should cost between 50 and 75 dollar in order to be a candidate for the inclusion in a health package in SSA. This estimate can easily change considerably when in the future the calculations will be based on thorough research. Thus, a targeted research programme for answering the open questions, especially on quality-of-life implications of infertility in different societies, is the preferred option for facilitating the future evaluation of ART in LIC. © The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved.