SOCIOBIOLOGICAL STATUS OF NIGERIAN MALES WITH PRIMARY AND SECONDARY INFERTILITY

Husbands in 100 consecutive couples complaining of lack of pregnancy a fter one year of normal intercourse were engaged in this study, Inform ation from a structured questionnaire administered to these 100 men sh owed that 46% had primary infertility (had never impregnated any woman ) and 54% secondary infertility (had in the past impregnated at le;ast one woman irrespective of the outcome of the pregnancy), The mean age s (years) and standard error of mean for the primary and secondary inf ertile groups were 33.46 +/- 1.45 and 39.28 +/- 1.41 respectively, The difference was statistically significant (p<0.05). Semen culture for growth of bacteria was positive in 59.3% of subjects with secondary in fertility as opposed to 40.7% for primary infertility. The difference was, again, statistically significant (p<0.05). These findings indicat e that a higher proportion of husbands in infertile couples in a group of this environment had secondary infertility, were older and were mo re likely to harbour infections in their semen than those with primary infertility. Hence there should be a greater awareness of the signifi cant involvement of bacterial infection of the genital tract of infert ile Nigerian subjects than and before this factor should be taken into account in the prevention and treatment strategies for infertility in this and presumably other tropical countries.