A study published in the journal JAMA Network Open shows that COVID-19 can be present in the semen of men who just recovered from coronavirus. The researchers made their findings public after six of 38 men treated at Shanqgiu Municipal Hospital in China for coronavirus had the virus in their semen. The discovery raises the question of whether COVID-19 can be transmitted via sexual relations.
The study leader was Dr. Weiguo Zhao of the People’s Liberation Army General Hospital in Beijing. Diangeng Li of the same hospital said traces of the COVID-19 virus were found in the semen of four infected men and two recovering patients.
The research team said coronavirus might be found in the semen because of privileged immunity, a situation where the immune system cannot access the testes to fight off viral infections. This means the virus may remain for some time in the testes without necessarily replicating until it is totally cured and flushed out of the system.
Meanwhile, Dr. Ryan Berglund, a urologist with the Cleveland Clinic’s Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute, said finding the coronavirus in semen samples should not be surprising given that it is present in patients’ stool and body fluids. Most infectious viruses such as Zika and Ebola among others live in the male reproductive system and can remain sexually transmissible several months after the patient has been cured.
But it remains uncertain if coronavirus can spread via sexual relations. The presence of the virus in the semen of recovering patients is no indication that it is still infectious. But the researchers said it is best for recovering patients to use preventive measures such as condoms, or even abstain from sex, until it is medically proven that the disease cannot spread sexually. To this end, there is also the need to monitor the fetal development of a child fathered by a patient recovering from coronavirus.
“If it could be proved that SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted sexually in future studies, the sexual transmission might be a critical part of the prevention of transmission,” the team wrote.
An earlier study published in the journal Fertility and Sterility did not find traces of COVID-19 in the semen of 34 men who had the disease. A senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, Dr. Amesh Adalja, said discovering the genetic material of the virus in the semen of male patients does not mean that it is infectious but it requires follow-up study to learn more.
Source: cbsnews.com