Currently, there are 3 million infertile couples in the country of which only 25% to 30% can afford the costs of infertility treatment, said Mohammad Eslami, head of the Family Health Department at the Health Ministry, on the sidelines of the regional meeting of experts in family reproductive health. “The 13 million single people in the marriageable age form the most important challenge in the plan to increase the country’s fertility rates,” IRNA quoted him as saying. Following a directive in 2012 from the Leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, the authorities began a major reversal of the family planning policy to boost the population growth rate, which at present stands at 1.3%.
