FREE IVF TREATMENT CONTEST IN NIGERIA

Nordica Fertility Center is offering free fertility screening and treatment for couples in Nigeria. 15 couples will benefit from the free screening while 5 couples will benefit from the free fertility treatment.

‎How To Participate:

Entries for the free fertility treatment contest which started yesterday will close on 18th October, 2015 while draws and announcement of winners will be held on the 25th of October, 2015. To participate infertility challenged couples are to send SMS text to 09081190600 or 08080800156. It should be titled ‘Free IVF’ and followed by the participant phone number and name of the couple (Mr. and Mrs. xxxx). Only infertility-challenged couples in Nigeria are eligible to enter for this contest and only two entries are allowed per couple using different telephone numbers in order to increase their chances.

On Sunday October 25, 2015 the foundation would bring joy and happiness to a lot of couples by giving away free fertility screening and full treatment to challenged couples through the contest. 15 couples will stand a chance to receive the free screening. While 5 couples will receive the full treatment. The draw will be done via an electronic raffle draw. The draw will hold at the Civic Centre, Ozumba Mbadiwe Road,Victoria Island.

OARS Foundation: Providing succour for infertile couples

For 17 years, they were looking for the fruit of the womb. The couple went from pillar to post. If they had had a child nine months after their wedding, the child would probably be in a secondary school now. But for 17 years, Opeoluwa Mabadeje, 46, and her husband, Ayoola, 51, did not give up. On the last Christmas day, their sorrow ended when the wife gave birth to a baby boy, named Oluwaseyi.
The success did not come easily. Their journey to triumph began in 2007 when they started receiving treatment at the Medical Assisted Reproductive Technology Centre, Maryland, Lagos. After undergoing two unsuccessful in-vitro fertilisation sessions at the centre, the couple benefited from the free IVF of the Oladapo Ashiru Health Solutions Foundation. It was the free treatment that resulted in the birth of the baby.
According to the Chairperson of OARS Foundation, Prof. Oladapo Ashiru, the free treatment is one of the ways the group is bringing smiles to the faces of couples with problems of infertility.
Explaining the couple‘s case, Ashiru said, ”They had been married for 15 years when they came here in 2007. They had a pregnancy, which they delivered through the Caesarian section, but the baby died. A friend of theirs, who had been to our clinic and succeeded, recommended this place to them.”
Like all couples undergoing treatment in the centre, the husband and wife were thoroughly investigated, before their treatment commenced. Beginning from 2007, they went through two unsuccessful IVF sessions.
The professor gave other objectives of the foundation, which was established in January 2005. These include ”improving the reproductive health of Nigerians through reproductive health information; carrying out reproductive health management and cutting- edge research into reproductive health problems.”
Ashiru described reproductive health problems as enormous. He said, ”Infertility occurs in one out of five couples. That is the global statistics. In a country, like Nigeria where access to health is reduced, the figure can be higher.”
The professor, who together with Prof. Osato Giwa-Osagie, pioneered the first test-tube baby through IVF and embryos transfer in 1989, said that unlike Nigeria, in developed countries citizens were constantly educated on causes of infertility and how to prevent them.
He stated that the foundation had been providing information on infertility through its reproductive health magazine, which is published quarterly. ”Medical ART Centre is an avenue through which we can manage infertility. A section in the centre is dedicated to research into cutting -edge area in infertility,” he said.
According to Ashiru, it is not all cases of infertility that require IVF. He said that with reproductive education and simple technologies, some cases could be treated without going through IVF.
He noted that in spite of the high rate of infertility, the cost of IVF and other assisted reproductive technology was still high. Ashiru said that the cost of IVF depended on the type of infertility.
“The IVF, which involves invtra cytoplasmic sperm injection, will cost about N1m. Complicated issues like advanced maternal age and genetic disorders such as sickle cell or other chromosomal disorder will require pre-implantation genetic diagnosis which will enable us to select the embryos and know the ones to use. Embryos with abnormalities can be discarded, while healthy ones will be selected. Embryos selected through pre-implantation genetic diagnosis have a higher chance of success.”
He put the cost of the technique at between $4,000 and $6,000. “Here, we do it for $4,000,” he said. Ashiru said that while the success rate of other techniques was 18 per cent, that of PIGD was 40 per cent.
He further said, “The foundation also assists those who have gone through IVF on several occasions and cannot meet the cost again. There is a waiting list, which comprises people who have undergone IVF on a few occasions and did not succeed. Success rate in this technology is not 100 per cent at the first attempt. You may get 100 per cent after three or four attempts.”
Explaining the criteria for selecting couples for the free treatment, he stated, ”We choose those who have gone through three IVFs and did not succeed, but if we have more people who can afford it, we can give more couples free treatment. For example, if we treat 10 couples, the eleventh can enjoy free treatment.”
The professor stated that assisted reproductive technologies in Medical ART Centre were comparable with those of advanced countries.
Ashiru added that the centre placed emphasis on staff training, adding that its workers went for seminars in the United States, South Africa and India.
The clinical coordinator of the centre, Mrs. Biola Adewusi, who has been involved in assisted reproduction for 10 years, said that the problem of male infertility affected more men in Nigeria than in the US. These problems, according to her, include sperm factors such as absence of sperm and low sperm count.
Causes of male infertility, Adewusi explained, included environmental factors and diet. He said that men in an industrialised environment might produce lower sperm count than areas that were less industrialised.
She said that there should be regulations to curb environmental pollution. Advising Nigerians, Adewusi called for regular medical check-up, adding that they should not delay treatment of infertility.

FREE ANNUAL IVF OFFER

Hope came alive last week in Asaba, Delta State for 10 lucky infertile couples who have almost given up on becoming parents when the management of foremost fertility treatment centre, Nordica Fertility Clinic, concluded another round of its draws to pick those to benefit in free treatment options.The idea of organising a public draw in which 16 Nigerian couples across the Federation, would, over a two-year period, have opportunity to access series of free In-vitro Fertilisation (IVF), cycles under the FTSF initiative is novel.The FTSF, formerly known as E.A.R.T (Expanded Access for Reproduction Techniques), was established as a result of the prevalence of infertility in society today and has since put smiles on the faces of many couples who hitherto felt incomplete.A regular IVF cycle in any standard fertility treatment facility costs an average of N650,000 to N1,000,000 depending on the clinic and profile of the case as a result, many couples desirous of conceiving their own babies have been denied the opportunity due to their inability to afford the cost. It was against this that Dr. Abayomi Ajayi, medical director, conceived the idea and the dream of fertility-challenged couples alive, FTSF was born.Implemented in partnership with Nordica Fertility Centre, Lagos/Asaba, the FTSF has, for years, been committed to the goal of giving 16 lucky Nigerians completely free IVF treatment cycle over a space of two years.The initiative was put together as a platform for enabling all fertility-challenged Nigerian couples, to have access to the best and most advanced assisted fertility treatment services in the world, at no cost.Two specially selected couples, who ultimately emerged from this raffle draw, will benefit from a full IVF or combination fertility treatment novel initiatives. This translates into two Nigerians every quarter.Ten couples are to be screened per quarter, out of which two would be chosen for the free IVF treatment. The Asaba event marked the second quarter of the ongoing event.The current phase of the draws kicked off three weeks ago, and by the time the period earmarked for couples to send in entries elapsed, a total of over 10,000 entries were received.To qualify for the rare opportunity offered by the FTSF, all intending couples, irrespective of their state of origin or residence, but with conception challenges, had sent their details - name, age of woman (wife), address and years of marriage to a special code 33140 - as directed. It was that simple.There were no limitations to the number of times of the entries. So all was set. The task of scaling down to the required 10 couples lay solely with the computer.From all indications, the choice of Asaba for this year's draws was not by accident. Rather it was significant. In a bid to ensure the initiative is truly national in character, there was need to move the draws around.First to be picked from the maze of entries was Joyi, whose cell phone number was conspicuously displayed on the screen. Joyi, who resides in Lagos, was unavailable to pick up the call when contacted on the indicated line, but a male voice, which announced itself as belonging to Mr Joyi urged the caller to ring back, promising to relay the good news to his wife.Joyi later called back to express her joy for being fortunate to have been picked again. Excitedly, she related how separately she and her husband had sent in repeated entries. Their strategy paid off because they emerged the very first winners. She had previously participated, but was not that lucky to benefit.Oseki David, a resident in Benin City, was the next lucky winner as his number rolled up on the screen. In the number three spot was P.B.Ghomorai from Patani. Fourth phone number to roll up on the screen belonged to Tom George of Port Harcourt, Rivers State.Falana Oluwayemisi, who resides in an undisclosed town in Osun State, emerged the fifth winner to round off the first half of the draws with her number.The sixth winner was identified as Kehinde Ologun of Lagos. Her number was randomly picked.She was followed by Tosin Oderinde of Ilorin Kwara State, while Ugbagbor, a resident of Lagos emerged the eighth winner by virtue of the fact that the computer picked her phone number out of the lot.When Nwaoghor Okwudili Unity's phone number was picked as the ninth winner, the hall erupted into applause because she resides in Asaba and it was a home call for everyone who was there that evening.Relevant Links· West Africa· Nigeria· Pregnancy and ChildbirthJust to keep up the excitement, organisers of the programme added a bonus by arranging an impromptu lucky dip for all couples present in the hall with fertility challenges.This was how Isioma Mordi and Isioma Matthew and their spouses got the rare opportunity to be screened free of charge by Nordica, Asaba. However, they would not be eligible for the full IVF cycle unlike the 10 couples earlier picked from the draws.The next step for the lucky 10 is that they would all undergo comprehensive screening to determine the best way in which they could be assisted to have their own children.Two couples with the best chances of attaining conception will then be selected from this list to benefit from full IVF or combination fertility treatment.SOURCE: ALLAFRICA.COM