The World Health Organization (WHO) has denied reports that it has started to classify those who cannot conceive a child with their partner as "disabled,"after the "reclassification" report triggered confusion and mockery online.
The WHO denied these reports and announced on its official Sina Weibo account late on Monday that the organization has never classified infertility as a disability.
The announcement came after a report posted on the website of the UK-based Daily Express on October 24, which claimed that the WHO will change their standards to classify those who are unable to "find a suitable sexual partner" with whom to create a child - including both heterosexual and gay couples - as disabled in order they may be given priority in fertility treatments.
The Daily Express report said that infertility, defined as the failure to achieve pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sex, was not considered a disability before the "change."
The report triggered wide controversy after being translated into Chinese and posted online Wednesday. The hashtag "no sex life classified as disability" has garnered more than 54 million page views on Sina Weibo as of press time, while several WeChat posts sharing the reported change had each been read more than 100,000 times within hours.
The topic was soon trending on online forums, with many calling the classification "ridiculous" and some arguing the WHO are reaching into social and moral matters rather than health issues.
