Chinese health authorities launched a campaign on Tuesday to tackle the abuse of assisted reproductive technology.

Unauthorized ART use, surrogate motherhood and the illegal collection and supply of sperm and eggs, as well as the illegal sale and abuse of ovulation-inducing medicine, will be targeted, according to authorities.

The Ministry of Health and the health department of the People's Liberation Army General Logistics Department jointly announced the campaign at a conference.

Both also ordered all of their local branches to suspend authorizations of new organizations that want to offer ART treatments, and launched an overhaul of such treatments being offered at authorized institutions.

Official figures show that by the end of 2012, China had 358 organizations authorized to offer ART treatment.

The health ministry also delivered a briefing on the country's current infertility rate and ART use.

The infertility rate is now between 7 and 10 percent, the ministry said.

Some 70 to 80 percent of women who are suffering from infertility can conceive after changing their lifestyles and receiving medical treatment, it said.

Around 20 percent of infertile couples have to resort to ART to have babies, it said.

In 2011, some 350,000 people received ART treatment and over 60,000 infertile couples successfully had children with the help of ART, the ministry said.

(China Daily 02/06/2013 page3)