A picture of the covid-19 impact on IVIRMA fertility treatment clinics in Spain and Italy

Abstract

The emergence of the novel coronavirus infection that arose in Wuhan, China in December 2019 has resulted in an epidemic that has quickly expanded to become one of the most significant public health threats in recent times. Unfortunately, the disease has spread globally. On March 11th (2020) World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a pandemic and has called governments to take urgent and aggressive action to change the course of the outbreak. Within the context of Assisted Reproduction, both reproductive medicine professionals and patients are also fighting against this unprecedented viral pandemic. In view of events, most of us had to make serious decisions, some of them with a lack of scientific evidence due to the circumstances and with the only objective of ensuring the safe care of our patients, reduce non-essential contacts and prevent possible maternal and fetal complications in future pregnancies. Pregnant women should not be considered at high risk for developing severe infection. Up to date, there are no reported deaths in pregnant women with Covid-19, while in the cases that have presented pneumonia because of Covid-19, the symptoms have been moderate and with a good prognosis in recovery

Emotional Impact of Delay in Fertility Treatment due to COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Although the latest update from ESHRE stated that any risk of viral contamination to gamete and embryos in the IVF laboratory is likely to be minimal because of the repeated washing steps required for the culture and freezing protocols. [ 10 ] However, as this is an evolving situation and there is a lack of high-quality evidence at the moment, it is difficult to make the final comment on this and we need to make our patients aware about this limited knowledge in the current scenario.…”

https://researchopenworld.com/italian-and-lombardy-county-art-post-covid-pandemic-scenarios/#

“…Comparing the 2019 data set with the two scenarios, the conservative with a 40% recovery in activity, and the optimistic with 70% recovery, we have calculated the delta value for each step of the treatments: number of cycles, retrievals, and transfer for fresh plus frozen cycles, and for each technique alone, we have considered the number of pregnancies obtained and the number of babies born [24].…”

Reproductive medical providers’ behaviors, considerations, and plans for fertility treatments during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Japan: A nationwide web‐based survey

“…Indeed, over half the couples have not halted the fertility treatment, including oocytes retrieval for IVF and all embryo freezing, although the epidemiologic curve hit the exponential phase (ie, when the daily increase of COVID‐19 patients was exponential) at that time and the Japanese government declared a state of emergency in response to the spread of COVID‐19. In contrast, in Europe, where the spread of infection and the peak of infection occurred earlier than in Japan, almost no patients received fertility treatment during late March and early April because of the forced or voluntary suspension or postponement of fertility treatment 9,10 . Thereafter, fertility treatment was resumed as soon as possible, and the period of discontinuation or postponement was only about seven weeks because the chance of infection and hence potential SARS‐CoV‐2‐related complications during pregnancy was reduced 10 …”