KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has become a sought-after destination in the region for fertility treatments, especially for couples from China.
Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) chief executive officer Mohd Daud Mohd Arif said among the factors for the popularity was the country's high success rate to induce pregnancy in middle-aged women.
"Some of our fertility institutions have recorded successful pregnancy rates as high as 82.9 per cent, through the transfer of a single good graded euploid blastocyst.
"Their success rate in inducing pregnancy through embryo transfers for women above 41 with pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT) is about 68 per cent."
Daud said Malaysia was home to 10 of the 30 fertility centres in the world that have the International Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee (RTAC) certification.
"Our fertility facilities are also equipped with state-of-the-art technologies, such as third generation in-vitro fertilisation, coupled with highly specialised embryologists, that gives higher treatment efficacy.
"The treatments are also reasonably priced between US$4,000 to US$5,000 per cycle," he told the New Straits Times.
Daud said China became a major market for Malaysian fertility treatments centres after the country abolished its one-child policy in 2016.
He said this paved way for some 90 million Chinese couples, including 40 million couples aged above 40, to seek quality fertility treatments.
China, he said, was a major contributor to Malaysia's healthcare travel revenue even before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
Other foreign healthcare travellers came from Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Brunei, he added, with Indonesia and China contributing more than two thirds of Malaysia's healthcare revenue in 2019.
In the same year, healthcare travellers from Myanmar and Vietnam made up two thirds of foreigners seeking obstetrics and gynaecology treatment here.
Daud said MHTC planned to promote Malaysia as a hub for fertility, cardiology, oncology and Hepatitis C treatment in the region.
"We have made various cardiothoracic breakthroughs in the region. The country's private healthcare sector alone has 58 cardiothoracic surgery specialists and more than 200 cardiologists."
MHTC, he said, wanted to position Malaysia as a centre of excellence for cancer care, with several Malaysian hospitals having ground-breaking imaging and cancer detection technologies.
"Malaysia is also in demand for orthopaedics, neurology, aesthetics (cosmetic surgery), dental, urology and gastroenterology services," he said.
Daud said the healthcare travel industry could fetch up to RM7 billion for the country by 2025.
"As the lead agency to promote and facilitate the healthcare travel industry, MHTC has developed the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Industry Blueprint 2021-2025 to steer the industry's post-pandemic recovery.
"Starting 2025, we will focus on making Malaysia a leading healthcare travel destination in the Asia-Pacific region by 2035, and in the world by 2040," he said.