Three decades after it created and delivered the first test tube baby in West and East Africa, the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, Idi-Araba, has reopened its Assisted Reproductive Clinic. Now known as LUTH Assisted Fertility Clinic, AFC, the IVF clinic has been restructured with hi-tech modern equipment.

Speaking with journalists at the opening of the clinic at LUTH last weekend, Professor Giwa-Osagie, one of the pioneers of the first test tube baby, said the re-starting of IVF services at LUTH took this long because the management was putting in place an ideal structure.


This, he said, include a sterile atmosphere for the laboratory and theatre; tiling of the laboratory and theatre; design of fee structure; acquisition of modern equipment; dedicated workforce and recruitment of patients.

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

“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 price than what obtains in the private sector.

There are now about 45 IVF centres in the country,” he said. Going down memory lane, 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 hospital and few government hospitals. But LUTH IVF clinic will always be unique because it was the first in West, East and Central Africa.

Only Egypt and South Africa were two African countries that had it before Nigeria in IVF history,” he said. Also present at the occasion was Professor Oladapo Ashiru- Professor Giwa’s IVF founding partner.