Coronavirus may not be sexually transmitted

COVID-19 is unlikely to be spread through sexual transmission, according to a study that found no evidence of the novel coronavirus in the semen or testes of men. The study, published in the journal Fertility & Sterility, was not comprehensive enough to fully rule out the possibility that the disease could be sexually transmitted.

However, the chances of it occurring, based on this limited finding, appear to be remote, the researchers said. "The fact that in this small, preliminary study that it appears the virus that causes COVID-19 doesn't show up in the testes or semen could be an important finding," said James M Hotaling, an associate professor at University of Utah in the US.

"If a disease like COVID-19 were sexually transmittable that would have major implications for disease prevention and could have serious consequences for a man's long-term reproductive health," said Hotaling. The researchers from China and the US launched the study in response to concerns that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, could be sexually transmitted like Ebola, Zika and other emerging viral pathogens.

They collected semen samples from 34 Chinese men one month, on average, after they were diagnosed with mild to moderate cases of COVID-19. Laboratory tests did not detect SARS-CoV-2 in any of the semen samples, the researchers found. However, just because the virus wasn't present in the existing semen didn't necessary rule out that it hadn't entered the testes where sperm cells are formed, they said.

"If the virus is in the testes but not the sperm it can't be sexually transmitted," said Jingtao Guo, a postdoctoral scientist at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah. "But if it is in the testes, it can cause long-term damage to semen and sperm production," Guo said.