The Director of the Biomedicine Agency, Emmanuelle Cortot-Boucher, explains why the latter launches a campaign to recruit new gametes donors.
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Does France have to expect a shortage of gametes? With the opening of the medically assisted procreation (LDC) to lesbian couples and women alone in September, demands tributary – 3,500 additional files this year, according to the Ministry of Health. To answer it, the Biomedicine Agency (ABM) launches, Thursday, October 21, a campaign in order to encourage the donation of sperm and oocytes. “This campaign aims to increase the number of annual donations to meet the needs of recipients, in all their diversity,” explained the ABM, the structure that frames the gift of gametes and the LDC, in a communiqué
According to the latest figures available to the Agency, 317 men gave their sperm in 2019 (18% less than in 2018) and 836 women donated oocytes (7.5% more than ‘in 2018). However, “spermatozoa stocks are sufficient to respond to” couples’ requests, while the number of oocyte donations should still be “increased” explains Emmanuelle Cortot-Boucher, Director of the Biomedicine Agency .
The Biomedicine Agency launches a campaign to recruit new donors and donors, is it because you are worried about gametes stocks while opening the LDC to all women Increases the number of requests for procreation aid with donation?
Emmanuelle Cortot-Boucher: For the moment, spermatozoa stocks allow us to meet all requests. At the end of 2019, the stock was about 107,000 sequins [the tubes of several milliliters in which the sperm is kept] while we used 6,900 over one year. Even if the stock has dropped to 100,000 sequins at the end of the year 2020 because of the interruption of the reception in the donation centers during the first confinement, the inventories remain sufficient to deal with not only on demand Who existed before the implementation of the law opening the LDC to all women, but also to the new demand that emanates from couples of women and women alone, even if it is dynamic.
But we need gamete donors, because the Law of 2 August 2021 has changed the legal regime of the gift by creating a right of access to the origins. From the 1 September 2022, donors and donors will no longer be able to give only if they agree to transmit their identity, as well as a number of non-identifying data concerning them to the derived person of their gift, who can ask access to his majority. This modification of the legal regime will force us, in the coming years, to destroy the current stock of gametes, even if we do not know yet when. It is therefore important to start preparing the future, inform future donors and donors of this change, and to mobilize new volunteers to restore the stock.
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