High Interest in Third-Party Reproduction in Serbia

Baby (Pexels)

Since Dec. 10, 2022, some 350 couples and single women have applied for assisted pregnancy using donated reproductive material, said Sanja Radojevic Skodric, the director of Serbian Health Insurance Fund.

“At present, procedures using domestic donated material have been launched, and all the necessary paperwork and permits have been acquired for the importation of eggs from Spain, so we are expecting their delivery to Serbia during the month of January,” Radojevic Skodric told the Jan. 4 edition of the Politika daily.

The official added that the number of applications has been rising steadily from day to day, which, she believes, proves that there is a great need for assisted pregnancy in the country.

So far, she said, contracts have been signed with three reproductive material banks – one in Spain and two in Denmark – while negotiations with another in the Czech Republic are under way.

Commenting on the need to “import reproductive material,” Radojevic Skodric said that Serbia itself does have one such bank but that interest in donating is “almost non-existent.” In the three-and-a-half years since it was founded, only five samples of semen and no eggs have been collected.