National Hospital, Abuja records 500 IVF births in 10 yrs — CMD

By George Odok

Calabar – Dr Jaf Momoh, the Chief Medical Director of National Hospital, Abuja says the hospital has recorded birth of 500 babies by In-Vitro Fertilisation between 2006 and 2016.

Momoh announced this on Saturday at the end of the 78th regular meeting of the Committee of Chief Medical Directors of Tertiary Hospitals held in Calabar.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that IVF is a process by which an egg is fertilised by sperm outside the body

According to Momoh, the hospital is the first to achieve this feat consistently for a decade in West Africa.

“National Hospital Abuja attended to over 20,000 patients last year and more than 15,000 of them were admitted.

“We have made more than 300 families happy; yet people are still flying to India for IVF which is just 10 per cent of the cost if it was done here in Nigeria’’, he observed.

Also speaking, Chairman of Committee of CMD’s of Tertiary Hospitals, Dr Thomas Agan, called on journalists to collaborate with the Federal Government to promote the country’s health sector.

Agan, who is also the CMD of University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, said that it had become pertinent for all hands to be on deck in ensuring the effectiveness of the change mantra of the present administration.

(Edited by Isaac Aregbesola, Kayode Olaitan)