The Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) has recorded a major milestone with the commencement of its in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) services, offering renewed hope to couples experiencing infertility.
The milestone was achieved by a team from the hospital’s Assisted Reproductive Health Technology unit and other specialists involved in the IVF programme.
The Chief Consultant Gynaecologist and IVF Specialist at AKTH, Ibrahim Rais, disclosed this in a video shared on the hospital’s official Facebook page.
Rais said the team had successfully retrieved eggs from two women and collected semen samples from their husbands as part of the initial stage of the IVF procedure.
“Today marks a great milestone in the history of AKTH and IVF service provision in the institution. The hospital’s Chief Medical Director (CMD), Abdulrahman Sheshe, and his team have been working assiduously, and today we have achieved this great milestone of the first egg collection in this institution,” he said.
“We have collected eggs from two women and also collected semen samples from their husbands. The eggs collected will be fertilised with their husbands’ sperm, and we hope to achieve success.
“We are going to continue the service provision with three more patients, and then we cap it up on Sunday with the last patient,” Rais added.
He said the commencement of IVF services at AKTH would make advanced fertility treatment more accessible to the large number of Nigerians seeking assistance with infertility.
Rais also said the centre would serve as a centre of excellence for training in obstetrics and gynaecology, as well as reproductive medicine.
“It is also important to note that starting IVF services in AKTH has been a very important development because the centre will form one of the points for service provision to the teeming population needing IVF services,” he said.
“It will form a centre of excellence for training in the field of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Reproductive Medicine. We have extracted more than a dozen eggs for now. Embryologists are working assiduously to ensure that there is fertilisation by sperm of the patients that had the procedure.
“We will go on to get more eggs that will generate more embryos and translate to potentially more Nigerians,” Rais said.
In a statement shared on its official social media handle, the hospital said the milestone was achieved through the collaborative efforts of AKTH staff, specialist reproductive health experts from Jos and Abuja, and two embryologists.
The hospital described the development as a significant step towards expanding access to advanced fertility services and bringing treatment closer to residents in Kano and surrounding areas.
AKTH also congratulated its staff and all the specialists involved in achieving the milestone, describing the development as an important step forward for reproductive healthcare at the institution.
