April 26, 2024

Expansion of EU will lead to “fertility tourism”

The eastwards expansion of the European Union will result in couples in Western Europe travelling to countries like Slovenia and Hungary for IVF treatment which is cheaper but still comparable in quality. Suzi Leather, the head of the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, says that she understands the temptation to cut costs but she warns that “there is no way that patients can be sure of safety or of the results advertised by clinics”.

According to data presented to the ESHRE conference by Dr Anders Nyboe Andersen, of Copenhagen University Hospital, in Denmark, Denmark is still the country where IVF was most popular, with 1,923 cycles per million people. There were 1,133 cycles per million in Sweden, 1,122 in Slovenia, 963 in the Netherlands, 593 in the UK, and 578 in Hungary.