Warning over critical lack of sperm donors

Published on Tuesday 11 November 2008 22:34

URGENT action is needed to tackle a shortage of sperm donors in the UK, experts warned yesterday.

Anonymous sperm and egg donation was banned from April 2005, meaning children can now trace their biological parents when they reach 18.

Leading fertility experts, writing in the British Medical Journal, now say new measures are needed to increase donor numbers after a severe decline in men willing to donate since the rules were changed.

Dr Mark Hamilton, chairman of the British Fertility Society (BFS) and based at Aberdeen University, and Dr Allan Pacey, secretary of the BFS, said around 4,000 UK patients needed donor sperm each year.

This meant that a minimum of 500 new donors were needed each year to meet demand.

In 1996, 403 men were newly registered with the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) as sperm donors in the UK, falling to 247 in 2004.

Figures for 2006 showed a rise to 307 but fewer women overall were treated with donor sperm.

In 2005, 2,727 women were treated with donor sperm but this fell to 2,107 in 2006.

"Currently, many clinics struggle to recruit donors, have long waiting lists for those needing treatment, have high costs, and in some areas have ceased to provide treatment services altogether," the doctors said.

Dr Hamilton and Dr Pacey criticised limits placed on the number of children donors can help conceive. They said the current limit of ten families from a single donor was "arbitrary".

Dr Hamilton said while some men would prefer to father only a few children, others might be happy to help conceive many more. In the Netherlands, which has a smaller population than the UK, the upper limit is 25, he said.

The experts also called for more "sperm sharing" schemes to be established.

Such programmes allow the male partners of women needing fertility treatment to donate sperm in return for cut-price IVF. Similar schemes are already in place for egg-sharing.

The doctors called for better advertising to attract potential donors, improved efficiency in dealing with first inquiries, and more convenient clinic opening hours.

Dr Hamilton and Dr Pacey rejected other measures, such as increasing the age limit for donors – currently 40 – because gene mutations can occur as men get older, or lowering the threshold for acceptable semen quality.

But some experts suspect that the shortage of donors may already mean clinics are using sperm of lower quality, resulting in fewer pregnancies.

Professor Richard Fleming, director of the Glasgow Centre for Reproductive Medicine, said the shortage of donors in Scotland was a serious concern.

"We need to be recruiting about 50 new donors every year in Scotland, but currently the supplies are not there," he said.

"We are nowhere near that level and it means that patients are going abroad to places such as Denmark for treatment."

Clare Lewis-Jones, chief executive of Infertility Network UK, said the BFS recommendations could help ease the UK's sperm shortage. "We know from the calls we receive from patients needing donor insemination how devastating it is to not be able to access the treatment they need to have a family because of the current shortage of donors, which in some cases is simply because of where they live."

BACKGROUND

SCOTLAND has had problems recruiting sperm donors over a number of years.

In 2006 it was reported that just one active sperm donor remained north of the Border, forcing patients to go elsewhere for treatment or join long queues. The situation has since improved, but both NHS and private clinics are still reporting shortages.

Professor Richard Fleming, director of the private Glasgow Centre for Reproductive Medicine, said two years after opening, the centre had only recently recruited five new sperm donors a year. He said even before anonymity was removed from donors, recruits were falling due to men's concerns about being stored on a national database