There are not enough Hungarian sperm donors

Though at least 1,000 donors are needed in Hungary per year, there are only a few dozens. Therefore, the country has to import it. Experts say that the fertility rate is not lower in Hungary than the average, but most men do not know how many people they could help.

“Help others to have a family,” says the call on the website of the biggest Hungarian sperm bank. However, despite the campaign, there are only a few men who donate, and their number decreases every year. And this is not because their fertility is lower than their Western-European counterparts or because they do not receive money for the procedure (on average, 150-200,000 HUF, EUR 500-650). Experts say that the reason is the lack of solidarity, hvg reported.

Meanwhile,

the number of infertile couples is rising.

Therefore, clinics have to import sperm from abroad, which makes the system insecure. For example, in 2015, the National Public Health and Medical Officer Service banned all imports because of a genetically wrong sample from Denmark, and the prohibition lasted until 2018 when the Curia abolished the decision.

Today, at least 15 pc of Hungarian couples are struggling with sterility. So, the system needs 1,000 donors per year, but because of the 2015 decision, there was not only a deficit on the market but

ongoing processes had to be stopped, too.  

As a result, many Hungarian couples turned to foreign doctors and, though thanks to the decision of the Curia, their number decreased already in the last year, there are still hundreds of them who are being treated in Czech, Ukrainian, or Spanish private clinics. Many desperate single women order sperm directly from the United States and do the insemination at home, which is, of course, very dangerous.

According to the data by the KRIO Institute, between May 1 and July 14 this year, only 598 Hungarian men applied to become a donor, and after reading about the procedure, only 98 of them went to the first tests. Of course, many of them were not suitable, so finally, only 12 of them remained in the program. Leonóra Száraz, the scientific director of the institute, said that at the beginning of next year, they would have more donors because the number of applicants is increasing. 

Humancell, another institute, said the same thing to hvg: they test 3-400 Hungarian donors each year, but only 15 of them prove to be suitable. 

The problem is that the Hungarian laws allow

only 4 successful treatments per donor

while this number is 8 in Norway and 25 in Germany. This is because Hungarian lawmakers wanted to minimise the bad results of a genetically wrong sample and wanted to reduce the chance of same-donor descendants to become one couple.

However, experts say that this regulation is very strict because, after 4 successful treatments, the samples have to be destroyed. They also agree that the lawmaking does not follow the technical development of this field in Hungary, and there are not enough explanatory campaigns on the issue. 

They added that

the state could reduce tax for donors, 

and there should be many small institutes everywhere in the country because now, people have to travel a lot to get into the centres.

The government announced a program to manage the problem of infertility in July, but no details were revealed since then.

We wrote HERE about how Hungarian women are spending millions to buy eggs from abroad, and HERE is some good news regarding demography: the number of abortions is declining in Hungary.

Source: hvg.hu