COVID-19 damages patients’ sperm, even weeks after recovery, Israeli doctors have concluded, expressing concern that the disease may reduce fertility.
“Men with mild disease have extensive sperm quality,” Dan Adarka, a professor at Sheba Medical Center, told the Israeli Times this week. “But those who had the disease in moderate or severe form often did not recover.
“These men had a reduction of about 50% depending on the number of sperm per milliliter, the total volume of ejaculation and the average semen motility.” This figure reflects the test conducted around one month after the inspection.
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Aderka, a professor at Tel Aviv University, said he was concerned that a minority of men with Covid-19 might be facing minority fertility or “permanent infertility.” But he said doctors need to monitor the sperm of recovered patients for months to find out more – that’s what he intends to do.
An Israeli person is tested for coronavirus at the Maccabi Healthcare Services testing booth in the central city of Ramallah on October, 2020. (Yossi Aloni / Flash 90)
In order to evaluate what is currently known, he concluded after conducting what is considered to be the most comprehensive analysis of various research projects undertaken worldwide by looking at sperm and COVID-19. His analysis has not yet been reviewed by Peer, but he has covered the semen of hundreds of men, referenced 40-plus studies.
To assess the long-term impact of the disease on male fertility, Aderka is now beginning to implement ongoing semen monitoring for some recovered Sheba patients.
He said: “We do not yet know if these effects are reversible, but we do know that other diseases of the coronavirus family, such as mumps and SARS, have left a long-term effect on fertility for male patients. For 20% of adult male mumps patients, there is infertility, complete loss of fertility, so we know the virus can have such an effect. ”
Professor Dan Aderka of Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University (Courtesy of Dan Aderka)
His concerns are based not only on the assessment of sperm samples, but also on state reports of testosterone of deceased COVID-19 patients. “A Chinese study examined coronavirus patients who died and the tests were damaged.” He added that the damage was centered on the two cells directly responsible for sperm production. ”
He commented: “Probably to some extent the tests cause physical damage, although we do not know in how many cases.”
He noted that the virus was found in the semen of some patients during and after the infection, but said this did not mean he could be sexually transmitted and said there was currently no evidence to suggest he could.
He said the current literature indicates that the virus is found in the sperm of 13% of male patients, and 8.6% of those who recover one or two weeks after active disease. After one month, there are no traces of coronavirus ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the sperm.
Asked what steps men can take to protect their fertility during an epidemic, he said wearing a mask can help, even if it means infection.
This is because the viral load that enters the body is small if people are protected by a mask, and the lower the viral load, the better the chances of defeating the immune virus even when in the mild phase and so on. Least affected. Semen.
Aderka said: “If you initially have a small viral load, your immune system has a good chance of catching the virus, so wearing a mask can really reduce severity, reduce mortality, and potentially, we’re re-learning based on that. We want to reduce infertility. “
