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Covid-19 pandemic: Impacts survey of fertility practitioners in Nigeria
Lateef Adekunle Akinola
Department Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Medison Specialist Women's Hospital, Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria
Correspondence Address:
Lateef Adekunle Akinola,
Medison Specialist Women's Hospital, Lekki, Lagos
Nigeria
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None DOI: 10.4103/ajiac.ajiac_4_20
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Background: COVID-19 pandemic has created a huge disruption to the activities of physicians and other healthcare providers all over the world. Fertility centers, fertility practitioners and patients alike are not left out. Infertile couples and families also face significant disruptions to their treatment schedules, financial plans as well as uncertainty about when their fertility treatments will begin. This survey evaluates the impacts that COVID-19 pandemic will have on the budgetary and operational activities of Fertility Centre's and practitioners in Nigeria. Methodology: A question-based, cross-sectional survey of registered fertility practitioners of the Association for Fertility and Reproductive Health of Nigeria (AFRH) carried out on the 10TH to 15TH of April 2020. Results: Majority of the respondents felt that their fertility centers made a good adaptation to the new working environment. Majority agreed that services have been negatively impacted, while 64.42% of responding practitioners felt the pandemic had not resulted to staff retrenchments. Also, majority believe that business continuity and plan is not been disrupted by the pandemic. A third of the respondents use travel and exposure histories, physical examinations and taking temperature for diagnostic assessments. AFRH and Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC) performance and response to Covid-19 pandemic were rated to be above average. Conclusion: Majority of the AFRH fertility practitioners surveyed felt that Covid-19 pandemic and its containment strategies negatively impacted work, services and budgetary needs of fertility practitioners in Nigeria, with no significant impact on staff employments. Response and guidance from the Association for fertility and reproductive Health and the NCDC towards curtailing the spread of Covid-19 infections to their members and the Nigerian communities, respectively, were rated above average.
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