The Government today launched a campaign to avert a shortage of egg and sperm donors when new rules removing the right to anonymity are introduced later this year.

Any children born as a result of a donation made after April will be able to find out the identity of their donor when they reach 18.

Some experts fear the move will lead to fewer people coming forward to make donations and force couples into "fertility tourism" - looking abroad for treatment.

The Department of Health launched the campaign to raise public awareness about the need for egg and sperm donors, with the message "Give Life, Give Hope".

The campaign aims to dispel any myths surrounding donation and to stress the help donors can give to the one in seven couples with fertility problems in the UK.

The new campaign will focus on men aged 28 to 45 and women aged 28 to 35. The DoH said that donations from just 0.01 per cent of the UK’s fertile population would satisfy the current demand for donated eggs and sperm.

At the moment 250 men and 1,100 women donate their eggs each year, providing treatment to around 7,000 patients.

The campaign will promote the work of the National Gamete Donation Trust (NGDT), which is the first port of call for anyone interested in egg and sperm donation.

Health Minister Melanie Johnson said: "As well as boosting the number of egg and sperm donors, we want to encourage people to see the value of donating and to realise what it really means to the recipients - that they are giving families hope and the possibility of a new life.

"We also aim to dispel the myths around donating egg and sperm and seek to assure donors that they will have no financial or legal responsibilities to any related offspring, either now or in 18 years’ time. By donating today, they are just giving an infertile couple the chance of having a child."

A survey of more than 650 adults carried out for the campaign found that 44 per cent had a positive attitude towards donation. The main motivations for donating were knowing family or friends who were infertile and the desire to do good. Only seven per cent saw being paid as a motivation.

NGDT chair Laura Witjens said: "Although donating egg and sperm is a very personal decision, it is very encouraging to see from this research that there is potentially a much wider pool of people willing to donate than we might have expected."

Olivia Montuschi, the mother of two children conceived through sperm donation, said the campaign would ensure that more people were given the opportunity to have the families they longed for.

"My partner and I feel very lucky to have been able to become parents thanks to the generosity of our donors. I would encourage more people to consider giving what is the most valuable charitable donation they could ever make - the gift of life."

The campaign is being supported by a network of 95 fertility clinics across England, using posters, leaflets and business cards.

Dr Allan Pacey, honorary secretary of the British Fertility Society (BFS), welcomed the launch of the campaign which is the first to put government resources behind a national programme to recruit egg and sperm donors.

He said: "Until now, fertility centres have had to commit their own resources and they have had variable success in doing so. There are important practical details yet to be worked out about how clinics will cope with what is a big change in everyday practice. Further guidance is urgently needed."

Lord Winston, Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College London, said that removing donor anonymity was a "disastrous" decision as it would encourage women to keep their donor insemination treatment secret.

He said: "There is a chance that the child will find out later in life about this in difficult circumstances. Moreover, this will cause a problem for infertile women who donate eggs during IVF treatment, as they may find out later on after their own treatment has failed that they have a child by another woman."

Dr Simon Fishel, director of the CARE Fertility Group, the UK’s largest independent provider of fertility treatment, added: "There has always been a shortage of people willing to donate but the problem is now exacerbated due to the policy of waiving anonymity."

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