Editorial: Infertility and fertility treatment options in sub-Saharan Africa

The region of sub-Saharan Africa carries one of the highest burden of infertility in the world. Lack of access to ideal treatment options, economic constraints, gaps in understanding the relationship between infertility and psychosocial well-being in the context of the region, and inadequate attention from policy makers further makes infertility a unique and challenging problem in this region of Africa. This Special collection covers Infertility and fertility treatment options in sub-Saharan Africa. The intention of this collection was to gather articles that present evidence on the magnitude of infertility, its impact on psychosocial well-being of individuals affected by it, and current initiatives (mainly creating access to in vitro fertilization [IVF] care) that can be adopted to address infertility as a major public health problem in the sub-Saharan Africa region.

The special collection includes 11 contributions. It begins with two review articles, synthesizing evidence on the outlook of oncofertility care in Africa and male infertility in sub-Saharan Africa. In the first article, Odhiambo and Muteshi¹ review existing literature on oncofertility in Africa. Then, Muteshi and Chesire² present prevalence of male infertility in sub-Saharan Africa and suggest on evaluation and management approaches. Next, we present four clinical articles, reporting on studies from sub-Saharan Africa that take a deep dive into the prevalence of infertility, psychosocial impact of infertility, and techniques of IVF care. On the practice of IVF care, Mekuria et al.³ discusses valuable data on cost-effective IVF protocols. In two separate articles, Balandya et al.⁴, and Teklemicheal and Gebreyohannes⁵ provide national data on the prevalence of infertility in Tanzania and Ethiopia, respectively. In the last clinical article, Araya et al.⁶ describes qualitatively analyzed data on the lived experience of women with infertility in Ethiopia. Towards the end, the special collection displays five brief communications. In the first two brief communications, Sium et al.^{7, 8} narrate the success story of establishing a public IVF center in Ethiopia and the role of south-to-south collaboration in its sustainability as a center with high-performing IVF services. Next, Gudu and Sium⁹ highlight the importance of qualitative research in advancing fertility treatment services in sub-Saharan Africa. Nsahlai¹⁰ provides a situational analysis of IVF in Cameroon. The special issue concludes with the last brief communication by Muteshi,¹¹ which describes premature ovarian insufficiency as an unrecognized cause of sub-fertility in Africa.

Editing this Special Collection was a rewarding experience for us. It is our hope that the articles in this special section will serve to inform and educate readers on global, regional, and national approaches to address infertility as a major public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa. It is our great wish that this special section will advocate for better infertility treatment services in sub-Saharan Africa, mainly the expansion of IVF care. We thank the authors for these outstanding contributions and all the reviewers involved for their invaluable peer-review service.

The authors contributed equally to the manuscript.

The authors have no conflicts of interest.