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February 2023
March 2018
Fertility Tourism: The fastest growing medical market? Here’s why you should be excited.
It is commonly known that a variety of fertility procedures are now available on a global scale at increasingly competitive rates. These include IVF and egg donation, which hundreds of Western patients travel for every month. However in this article I want to talk about sperm donation, a procedure has become a hot topic in terms of popularity and medical reputation. In addition to this, it has also emerged as one of the major global markets in recent years. Why has sperm donation become so popular? What has enabled it to get a place on the global market? Read on to find out some more about exciting new developments for both clinics and patients.
Arguably, sperm donation has become popular due to the realisation that conception is possible in many ways thanks to our modern technology. Sperm donation has allowed couples who cannot conceive naturally to have another shot at childbirth, the same goes for egg donation. This also applies to homosexual and lesbian couples, who have benefitted hugely from sperm donation. In addition to all this, men also donate sperm for the use of other couples who are having trouble conceiving – this has created a global market for sperm banks.
According to one leading source, the sperm bank market is set to reach almost $5 billion dollars in worth. They estimate that this is because more and more countries are relaxing laws on same-sex marriage and becoming more favourable to sperm donation as an industry. Another reason is that infertility has become common, and that more people are searching for donated sperm to complete their dreams. All in all, a supply and demand effect has driven sperm donation into never before seen levels of activity.
Fertility clinics in Europe are seeing more and more people apply for egg donation and sperm donation. Specifically fertility clinics in Prague, Czech Republic, are becoming popular. Another reason to get excited about fertility processes like this today are that they are safer than ever. Sperm can now be safely stored for up to two decades, and risks for issues like infection have decreased. Centres such as Gynem Prague have managed to gain a great reputation thanks to low risk and high success rates with sperm donation. A quick look at medical tourism numbers will reflect the strong reaction it is having across the world, and with a market reaching this level of success it seems unlikely that it will slow down any time soon.
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