Nigerian Men Have Poor Sperm Quality – Prof Nicholas Zech

The sperm of Nigerian men is said to be of a poor quality which accounts for an increasing rate of infertility amongst married couples who want to have their own biological children.

This statement was made by Professor Nicholas Zech of the IVF Centres Prof Zech, Austria, the World's first International Standards Organisation (ISO) certified In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) centre at the opening of the new state of the art Hospital at G.R.A, Ikeja.

"This is just an observation we made over the last couple of years since our collaboration with the Bridge clinic and I can trust in the data because we set the standards of how the sperm is analysed and interestingly, compared to the European countries. The sperm we see of patients coming into the centre are lower, the quality is lower," he said.

"I want to find out what is the cause but I just can't start now, because I know the centre does the same grading as we do and then do studies to compare. It could be the toxic environment, the working place, where you live in," Zech added.

The fertility expert added that to improve the success rates of IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization) in Nigeria, there are quite a number of precautions to be taken.

"To improve the success rates of IVF, we must try to reduce the toxic level in the body to a minimum and create a healthy lifestyle.

"Nowadays, with IVF, we can do a lot of studies, for instance for women-you can get a cancer if you smoke for a long time and you can damage your egg much faster, most cosmetics, especially those with sunblocks could also destroy the eggs of a patient," he added.

Zech however advised the male patients not to lose hope as there was still a solution for any abnormalities."We can improve the sperm, the first time we meet a couple, we try to work to get them pregnant, we do a sperm training, the man has to ejaculate very frequently- this is a new invention of ours.