About 30 years after it delivered the first test-tube baby in West and East Africa, the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi Araba, has opened an Assisted Reproductive Clinic.

Speaking to journalists during the commissioning of the LUTH Assisted Fertility Clinic, Prof Osato Giwa-Osagie, one of the pioneers of the first test tube-baby in the region, said the restarting of IVF services at LUTH took this long because management was putting in place an ideal structure. This includes a sterile space for the laboratory and theatre; tiling of the laboratory and theatre; design of a suitable fee structure; acquisition of modern equipment; a dedicated workforce and recruitment of patients.

Giwa-Osagie, who is also the Coordinator of the clinic, explained that the hospital is setting a goal of producing not less than 200 babies through IVF per annum.

“I am proud that this is coming to be as there is no short cut in life. Good legacies are built through perseverance, consistency and determination. The reopening of this clinic put history in the right perspective.

“This marks a return of IVF where it started in West Africa. We are set to charge lesser prices than what obtains in the private sector. There are now about 45 IVF centres in the country,” he said.

Professor Giwa-Osagie revealed that the initial IVF programme at LUTH treated 20 patients between 1984 and 1994. “But we could not sustain it because of lack of institutional and government support. Today, the IVF services in Nigeria are largely provided by private hospitals and a few government hospitals. But the LUTH IVF clinic will always be unique because it was the first in West, East and Central Africa. Only Egypt and South Africa were the two African countries that had it before Nigeria in IVF history,” Giwa-Osagie said.

Also present at the occasion was Prof Oladapo Ashiru, Prof. Giwa’s IVF founding partner.

Ashiru, President African Fertility Society, pledged support for the clinic saying that he will help the Centre achieve the quality control it needs. “World Health Organisation (WHO) standard will be brought back here. But the Department of Anatomy must start a course in clinical embryology so that (future) embryologists will be trained, because the success of IVF starts in the laboratory,” he said.

LUTH’s Chief Medical Director (CMD), Prof. Chris Bode, said hospital’s management has contributed to history by bringing back IVF at an affordable rate. “The clinic will make IVF service affordable, accessible and available, as this is a foremost institution of excellence and we have the experts here that get things done,” he said