A new study from China claims that traces of coronavirus have been found in the semen of some critically ill patients, raising concerns that the virus could be sexually transmitted.
Researchers from Shangqiu Municipal Hospital looked at semen analysis of 38 COVID-19 patients and found that six of them had traces of the virus in their semen. They said of those six men, four were still infected and two were recovering.
The study findings were published Thursday in the journal JAMA Network Open. Dr. Weiguo Zhao of the People’s Liberation Army General Hospital in Beijing was the lead author of the study.
Urologist Dr. Ryan Berglund of Cleveland Clinic said, “It’s not surprising that the virus was found in semen samples since it’s also been found in stool and other body fluids.”
Dr. Berglund and some infectious disease experts have warned that this does not provide strong evidence that COVID-19 can be transmitted through sexual intercourse.
“I think that’s premature,” Dr. Berglund said. “You have to look at this as a sign that semen, as along with a number of other body fluids, can contain the virus.”
The new study comes on the heels of another Chinese study conducted in April, which was published online in the journal Fertility and Sterility. That study found no evidence of the virus in semen samples of more than 30 men.
Dr. Amesh Adalja of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore said, “The fact that the novel coronavirus’ genetic material is found in the semen of male patients is an important finding that will need follow-up study.”
Dr. Greg Poland of Mayo Clinic, who agreed with the need for further studies, said, “To me, it raises a warning, and now we have to attend to that warning and do the research.”
However, both Dr. Adalja and Dr. Poland suspect that COVID-19 could be sexually transmitted.
“We know the virus is transmitted efficiently through the respiratory route and we have not seen any documented cases of sexual transmission, therefore this may not necessarily represent proof of sexual transmissibility via the male genital tract,” Dr. Adalja said.
“It doesn’t tell you that it’s whole, viable, infectious virus,” Dr. Poland said. “If I ground up the virus and performed this test, it would be positive even though that virus has no infectious potential.”
