Japanese doctors have developed an in vitro fertilization technique that could allow the wives of HIV-infected husbands to give birth to healthy babies.
The method, developed by doctors at several institutions, including Ogikubo Hospital and Keio University, aims to completely remove the human immunodeficiency virus from sperm before it is used to fertilize an egg in vitro, to keep the chances of infection to a minimum.
Kenichi Tanaka, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at Niigata University, plans to compile guidelines governing the implementation of the technique before the end of the year, after other relevant parties have examined matters such as safety and ethics.