A new fertility treatment centre was opened late last month in Addis Abeba, expanding the number of facilities that offer the service in the city to three.

New Leaf Fertility Centre opened its doors on South Africa St., near the Embassy of South Africa, at the end of March, making it the second private clinic to offer in vitro fertilisation (IVF) in Ethiopia after Alhikmah Fertility Centre, which was established a few years ago. New Leaf was founded by Iman Abdulrahman (MD) and Abubeker Mohammedsalah with 50 million Br in capital.

The complete instalment of equipment took over two years, and New Leaf has already registered close to 130 people seeking treatment for issues relating to fertility. Even though fees vary with the different protocols and procedures, charges for treatment generally range from 5,000 Br to 170,000 Br, a much lower amount than 10,000 dollars in Thailand.

Next to Alhikmah Fertility Centre and the Centre for Reproductive Medicine at St. Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College, New Leaf is the third to bring IVF technology, a type of assisted reproductive technology used to treat infertility, to the country. The emergence of these facilities in Ethiopia will reduce the travel people commonly make to Thailand, India, or South Africa for treatment.

Around 15pc of couples struggle with infertility or sub-fertility; of these, almost half need assisted-reproduction, according to Feruz Surur (MD), senior gynaecology consultant, reproductive endocrinology and infertility subspecialist, and medical director for the fertility centre at St. Paul's Hospital.

It has been two years since the first public IVF center was inaugurated under St. Paul's Hospital. The centre provides services ranging from counseling to termination of unwanted pregnancy and all ranges of treatments such as surgeries, medication, and assisted reproduction. More than 1,000 IVF procedures have been carried out at the hospital.