AMID talks of the country’s declining birth rate and exhortations for people to reproduce, a local fertility firm is on the hunt for egg donors and is looking overseas — specifically in the Caribbean — to meet the high demand in Jamaica for eggs from women of diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Dr Sharifa Frederick, clinical director at Caribbean Fertility Centre, disclosed to the Jamaica Observer that currently, 70 per cent of her clients are requesting donors of mixed race, with an additional 20 per cent requesting African or African Caribbean donors. The remaining 10 per cent are requesting donors of Asian or Indian ethnic backgrounds.

She noted that in previous egg donation drives, her fertility firm received 40 to 50 per cent of donors who were not mixed race and, therefore, did not meet the demand.

“We’re targeting countries such as Trinidad, Guyana, and Barbados, so that we can get a wider diversity of the population. We have people who want Caribbean eggs, not necessarily Jamaican, and, of course, if we put it out to the Caribbean, we get a wider diversity in terms of ethnicity of egg donors because we have a market now,” Dr Frederick said.

“Caribbean people have a very diverse ethnicity and so we don’t want to just confine it to Jamaica. We want to put it out there so that we have a better variety of egg donors to choose from, where we would have a mix of donors. We have a lot of mixed clients who are mixed with Chinese, Indian, black, Caucasian, and so we have to be able to, or our egg pool has to also reflect this variety of what exists in the population,” she told the Sunday Observer after the centre’s call for egg donors sparked conversation on social media, amassing more than 40,000 likes and shares on TikTok up to Saturday morning.

It has been two weeks since Dr Frederick’s company posted about its drive for regional donors. The response, she said, has been overwhelming.

So far, 829 women have offered to become donors.

The women are mainly from Trinidad, Guyana, and Jamaica, with a few from the African continent. However, Dr Frederick said they had to decline African applicants based on their compensation package.

The target donors are women 20 to 30 years old who, preferably, graduated from a tertiary institution and have viable eggs for donation. The process will include medical and psychological screenings to determine if a candidate is viable. If successful, donors outside of Jamaica will receive an all-expense paid round-trip flight to Jamaica, inclusive of accommodation and transportation. Donors will also receive compensation of US$2,000 to US$2,500 per donation cycle.

For each donation, a minimum of 12 eggs are retrieved. Women are only allowed to donate up to three times and must take at least a one-month break before they can again donate.

According to the Hugh Wynter Institute for Reproductive Healthcare & Endoscopic Surgery, which operates on the grounds of University Hospital of the West Indies, Mona, egg donation is the process of collecting eggs from a donor that are fertilised using the sperm of the intended male parent. The fertilised egg, now called an embryo, is then transferred to the recipient woman to achieve a pregnancy.

The practice was developed in the 1980s, initially for women with ovarian failure or premature menopause. Later it was extended to women who carried a genetic disease, ovulating women who appeared to have issues with their eggs, and couples who failed to conceive after multiple in vitro fertilisation (IVF) attempts. Jamaica adopted the practice in 2007.

“I have linkage with a lot of doctors in the different Caribbean countries, so it’s easier for me to reach out to them and ask for their assistance in working up the donors as gynaecologists. In terms of Africa, it’s very expensive to be able to pay the airfare to bring them in from Africa, and then I wouldn’t be able to liaise with anyone over there, so it’s just impossible,” said Dr Frederick, as she provided her reason for opting not to go with potential African donors.

She added that the fertility centre has also chosen not to enter the United States market for other donors because that country already offers the service at a competitive rate.

According to Egg Bank America, egg donors are compensated US$5,000 per cycle, inclusive of an all-expense paid trip to donate. Compensation packages across the country range from US$2,000 to US$50,000, but can be higher for exceptional cases or experienced donors.

With a population of three million, Jamaica has fallen below the internationally accepted 2.1 fertility rate required for maintaining the population. The downward trend has been attributed to many factors, including women waiting until they are more established in their careers to conceive. As a woman ages, her eggs become less viable for fertilisation, making conception at a younger age easier.

As Jamaicans seek alternative fertility treatments to make their dreams of having children possible, Dr Frederick has invited young women to be a part of the process.

“You’re helping families, and that’s… foremost of it all. You’re helping women who, if it weren’t for these donors, they would not have the opportunity of fulfilling a dream of a family, and I think that’s the way to think about it,” she told the Sunday Observer.

“There’s no amount of money that we can compensate them [donors] for what they’re doing. They’re helping someone fulfil the dream of a family, and what could be better than that? What could be more satisfying than that?” Dr Frederick reasoned.

FREDERICK… we want to put it out there so that we have a better variety of egg donors to choose from