Chinese doctors have discovered the presence of coronavirus in the semen of both infected and recovered male patients.
A study by doctors at China’s Shangqiu municipal hospital of 38 men hospitalized with the virus found that six of them tested positive for coronavirus in their semen.
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One of the patients in the study at Shangqui Municipal Hospital in Henan Province, China, tested positive for coronavirus in his semen 16 days after coming down with the virus and three days after recovering from the virus.
It has raised fears the deadly disease could be sexually transmitted, with health chiefs considering whether to advise people against having sex for a set time after they have recovered.
The team wrote in a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association: “Further studies are required with respect to the detailed information about virus shedding, survival time and concentration in semen,
“If it could be proved that Sars-CoV-2 can be transmitted sexually, it might be a critical part of the prevention, especially considering the fact that Sars-CoV-2 was detected in the semen of recovering patients.”
The research team said the coronavirus could be transferred to the male reproductive tract, especially where there is local inflammation.
They said: “Even if the virus cannot replicate in the male reproductive system it may persist, possibly resulting from the privileged immunity of testes.”
This new research from China contradicts previous findings that did not detect coronavirus in the semen of infected patients. A previous study of 12 coronavirus patients in February and March found that all of them tested negative for Sars-CoV-2 in their semen samples.
Therefore, scientists have agreed to conduct a bigger and more detailed study to determine is the virus can actually be found in the semen of recovered male patients.