IVF treatment: South African agency flies egg donors to Australia

A group of young South African women are due to arrive in Australia this month for an all-expenses paid trip of a lifetime – but there's a catch. They have to leave their eggs behind.

The fertile white women are coming to serve as egg donors for local IVF patients who are desperate for babies.

A new donor agency called Known Egg Donors, based in Cape Town, will fly the first group of four white South African women to Brisbane airport and pay to put them up in serviced apartments for at least a fortnight. A local chaperone will ferry them to medical appointments.

Australian IVF patients have paid $13,600 to the agency for fresh eggs from the donors, on top of their other IVF costs. The agency takes $3800, while the donors (who cannot be paid under Australian law) will receive up to $2500 to cover their living costs while here.

The new agency comes as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigates how IVF success rates are reported because of claims that women are being...