The following is a summary of “Study of SARS-CoV-2 in semen from asymptomatic donors with the presence of virus in nasopharyngeal swabs,” published in the December 2023 issue of Urology by Alvarez, et al.
For a study, researchers sought to determine if severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was found in sperm samples from donors who didn’t have any symptoms but whose nasopharyngeal tests showed the virus. Between January 2021 and March 2022, nasopharyngeal PCR was done on 1,943 sperm donors. The test came back positive for 140 gifts, and SARS-CoV-2 could be found in cryopreserved sperm from 84 of these donors.
This included 67 people whose fresh sperm quality could be compared to the previous donation, the day of the PCR-positive nasopharyngeal test, and the next donor. People who donated sperm were frozen using methods for either total semen (n = 26) or ready-to-use (n = 58). Reverse transcription PCR was used to find out if SARS-CoV-2 was present in samples that had been frozen. The quality of the sperm was judged by its amount, concentration, and ability to move forward, as suggested by the World Health Organization in 2010.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus was not found in frozen total semen or ready-to-use samples. There were no big changes in the amount of semen, its content, or its ability to move forward between the last donation, the day of the positive PCR nasopharyngeal test, and the next gift. The fact that SARS-CoV-2 could not be found in semen samples from sick people who did not have any symptoms supported the safety of using these samples in assisted human reproduction methods.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1472648323004212