Can you donate your eggs if you have HPV or herpes?

Hello,

We are a group of young girls from Melbourne Medical School – University of Melbourne. We are very interested in the field of reproductive medicine and so we’d love to help other women having a child! As we are young we think we fit into the common egg donoir profile, but we’d like to get firstly the following questions answered:

1) If one of us has the Human Papillomavirus (HPV), can she still donate her eggs?
2) The same as in the previous question, but in the case of herpes.

We know they both are STDs, but we don’t know to what extent they are related or something.

Thank you in advance for being so helpful 😉

Hello,

It depends on the clinic you resort to. While there is no test that expressly excludes those women who have herpes (HSV) or HPV, I think many fertility clinics or egg donor agencies may disqualify any women who has HPV or herpes. The screening for potential egg donors includes the following STDs: HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea, genital herpes, and chlamydia. These are the most common STDs observed in screenings for potential egg donors, but it may be not limited to these STDs in some clinics. Egg donation programs may vary according to the qualities they prefer, due to legal reasons usually. Be it as it may, these STDs are not so easy transmitted and, besides, donor eggs are carefully selected to transfer to the recipient only those of optimal quality.

In case a woman with herpes or HPV wants to donate her eggs, doctors at the clinic will pay special attention to this case to ensure no relapse occurs during the process.

If you want to learn more about egg donation, do not miss the following posts:

How to become an egg donor
What is egg donation?

Best regards