(Yicai Global) Feb. 10 -- Several Chinese sperm banks have reached out to college students, asking them to donate semen amid shortages of qualified supply.

On Feb. 8, not long after a new semester began, cryobanks in Yunnan and Shaanxi provinces called for local college students to donate sperm, Yicai Global learned. Donors need to be at least 1.65 meters tall, aged between 20 and 40, and enrolled or graduated from college. Each successful donor is given up to CNY5,000 (USD735).

Sperm banks have relatively high standards as samples must be stored in ultra-low temperatures, Hubei Daily's Jimu News reported today, citing semen bank workers.

An eligible donor needs to have a density of over 60 million sperm cells per milliliter, three times the average, a person in charge of a related facility in Yunnan province said. "Many volunteers are unqualified as a lot of men are under bigger pressures in their daily lives." The manager in the southwestern province said that just 19 percent of the nearly 270 candidates were eligible when the semen bank began operations in 2019.

Moreover, part of the recent shortages is caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. For some time over the past two years, colleges closed their gates and barred visits to the world outside while the demand for fertility treatments remained unchanged.

China strives to ease families' plight to reverse the aging population trend. Treatments to reduce pain during labor and ART will gradually be covered by public health insurance to lower patients' medical burdens, the National Healthcare Security Administration said recently. Last year, some 9.6 million babies were born in China, down from 18.8 million in 2016.

The country had more than 450 medical bodies authorized to facilitate assisted human reproduction as of June 2021 and nearly 30 of them were allowed to operate sperm banks, according to data from the country's top health authority.

Editor: Emmi Laine