Level of male infertility in the Ghanaian city of Tema

Abstract

Infertility among couples is a sensitive issue in Ghana; females are mostly blamed. Most male infertility cases are generally due to low sperm counts (oligozoospermia), poor sperm quality – characterised by poor sperm motility (asthenozoospermia) – or a combination of both (oligoasthenozoospermia). This is a retrospective study from January 1995 to December 2005 which determined the level and type of male infertility in and around the city of Tema. Seminal fluid analysis reports of male clients who visited the Adom Medical Laboratory in Tema were extracted from laboratory data and analysed. Our study involved 2795 males in the age range of 24–36 years. In 1995, 75% of the total samples analysed had sperm concentrations ranging from 21 to 350 million sperms/ml and showed a decreasing trend to 41% in 2005. Samples with sperm concentrations below 20 million sperms/ml in 1995 increased from 20.5% to 57.6% in 2005; those with active motility > 45% decreased from 27 (30.7%) in 1995 to zero (0%) in 2005, whilst samples with > 50% non-motile sperms increased from 47 (53.4%) in 1995 to 449 (87.7%) in 2005. Male infertility in the samples analysed was due to a combination of oligozoospermia and asthenozoospermia.

Keywords::

• Asthenozoospermia
• azoospermia
• oligoasthenozoospermia
• oligozoospermia

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Dr. S. Q. Maddy and Mr. Kofi Dometey Narh, both of Adom Medical Laboratories, Tema, Ghana, for their help during the data collection phase of the study.

Authors’ contribution

AM-O was responsible for the research design, acquisition of data and execution of research.

DNA was responsible for the statistical analysis in the writing of the manuscript.

AMO, DNA and CAB together did the analysis and interpretation of the data and fine-tuned the writing of the paper.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no declarations of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.