60-day study shows Covid can cause significant damage to male fertility



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A German study suggests that the Chinese coronavirus may inflict long-term male fertility, with sperm quality significantly affected over a 60-day period.

Researchers at Justus-Liebig University compared 84 men infected with the coronavirus to a control group of 104 people of the same age, and found, according to the Telegraph, that “the sperm concentration was reduced by 516%, the mobility by 209% and the sperm shape was changed by 400%”.

“These effects on sperm are associated with lower sperm quality and reduced fertility potential,” said doctoral student Behzad Hajizadeh Maleki, who led the research.

“Although these effects tended to improve over time, they remained significantly and abnormally higher in Covid-19 patients, and the magnitude of these changes was also related to the severity of the disease,” Maleki added, warning that “the male reproductive system should be taken into account. a vulnerable route of infection with Covid-19 and should be declared a high-risk organ by the World Health Organization. “

Some experts, however, have suggested that longer-term studies would be needed to say whether the impact of the coronavirus on male fertility persists over time.

“Covid-19 enters host cells by binding its spike glycoprotein to the ACE2 receptor which is found at high levels in the testes,” explained Dr Channa Jayasena, of Imperial College London.

“It made us fear that Covid-19 could harm male infertility,” Jayasena continued, but went on to point out that “being sick with a virus such as the flu can temporarily lower your sperm count ( sometimes zero) for a few. weeks or months. “

“This makes it difficult to determine to what extent the reductions seen in this study were specific to Covid-19 rather than just being sick,” he said.

“This study suggests that there may be an inflammatory response in the testes after Covid-19, which makes it more plausible that Covid-19 influences male fertility.

“This makes it important to study the long-term effects of Covid-19 on male fertility.”

Professor Allan Pacey, an expert in andrology at the University of Sheffield, issued a similar warning, saying it was “no small feat” that the study was “able to repeat [its] measurements every 10 days over a period of 60 days ”, but that“ since sperm production takes a little less than three months, or so, to be completed from start to finish ”, it may have been discontinued too early to draw definitive results.

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