Nigeria’s first test-tube baby secures admission into varsity

Miss Hannatu Kupchi

About 17 years after she was born through In Vitro Fertilisation, Nigeria’s first test tube baby, Miss Hannatu Kupchi, has secured admission into a Hungarian University to study medicine.

The medical doctor that supervised the first IVF experiment in Nigeria, Dr. Ibrahim Wada, said Hannatu’s birth on February 11, 1998, at Nisa Premier Hospital in Abuja, signalled a revolution in the practice of medicine in Nigeria.

Speaking on Sunday evening in Abuja during a brief reception and presentation of an award to Kupchi, he said, “When I was out of this country, I knew there were people who wanted babies. I made the decision to come back to Nigeria to help people. It happened on February 11, 1998 when this historic event occurred in this hospital.”

Responding, Kupchi promised to break barriers and become a doctor in order to help families and parents who are unable to give birth through the traditional means.

She said by her birth, misconceptions about IVF were broken and that many more children had been brought into this world as well.

“I barely made it beyond the cut off mark. God helped me. I am going to try my best and make everyone proud. I am studying medicine because I want to be a doctor. I want to study it because I want God to use me to help families who suffer what my parents went through,” she said.

In his remarks, father of Hannatu, Mr. Hosea Kupchi, said, “We had 13 years of marriage without a child and we went through the orthodox method without any success. But along the line, my sister-in-law told me that there was one Dr. Wada that had been helping couples. That is how we came.”

PUNCH (1 September 2015)