A dig through the literature has uncovered evidence of 27 distinct viruses from a wide variety of families capable of staying intact as they’re transmitted through semen to a new host. While not all of the microbes are confirmed sexually transmitted infections, the review does draw attention to the fact the testes seems to provide a potentially easy way for just about any kind of virus to migrate into a new home. This latest research was inspired by the recent discovery of Zika virus RNA in the semen of infected hosts.
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To see what other nasties might be lurking alongside our sperm, the researchers ran a search through the PubMed catalogue for relevant terms, filtering out over 3,800 papers containing some mention of viruses and semen. All up they fished out evidence of 27 viruses – including Zika – that could remain intact enough to infect the blood of a new host.
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Viruses responsible for diseases such as influenza, SARS, and dengue have been found in the testes, making it a fair question to ask if they’re one small step away from an easy passage. […] But with Zika taking a number of people by surprise, we should be thinking outside of the box when it comes to the spread of viruses.
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This research was published in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: More Viruses Than We Previously Thought Could Be Transmitted Sexually
