Mild or moderate COVID-19 can also alter men's fertility

COVID-19 has already affected more than 497 million people in the world and took the lives of 6.1 million. Among those who survived, the coronavirus infection passed without consequences. But some people suffer from sequelae, such as mental fog, that are included in the long-term COVID picture, and more impacts are being discovered every day. The latest news is that there is more evidence that even men who develop mild cases of COVID-19 can suffer from alterations in their fertility.

The new study was conducted at the Jaslok FertilTree International Centre, of the Department of Genetics and Assisted Reproduction of the Jaslok Research Centre and Hospital in India. It was published in the specialized journal ACS Omega of the American Chemical Society.

Led by scientist Firuza Parikh, the study consisted of the analysis of protein levels in the semen of men who have recovered from COVID-19. This was a pilot study, which was funded by Jaslok Hospital. The results suggest that even mild or moderate illness could change protein levels related to male reproductive function.

Although the infection mainly affects the respiratory system, the coronavirus - and the body's response to its admission - also damages other tissues. Recent evidence indicates that COVID-19 infection may reduce male fertility, and the virus has been detected in male reproductive organs.

Firuza Parikh and Rajesh Parikh, from Jaslok Hospital, Sanjeeva Srivastava, of the Indian Institute of Technology, and their colleagues wondered if COVID-19 infection could have long-term effects on the male reproductive system. To find out, they decided to compare the levels of protein in the semen of healthy men and those who had previously suffered from mild or moderate cases of COVID-19.

The researchers analyzed semen samples from 10 healthy men and 17 men who had recently recovered from COVID-19. None of the men, whose age ranged from 20 to 45 years, had a history of infertility. The team found that recovered men had significantly reduced sperm count and mobility , as well as fewer sperm normally, than men who had not had COVID-19.

When researchers analyzed semen proteins using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, they found 27 proteins at higher levels and 21 proteins at lower levels in men recovered from COVID-19 compared to the control group. Many of the proteins were involved in reproductive function. Two of the fertility-related proteins, semenogellin 1 and prosaposin, were present at less than half their levels in semen of the group recovered from COVID-19 than in semen from controls.

These results suggest that coronavirus has direct or indirect effects on male reproductive health that persist after recovery, Indian researchers say. They emphasized that their work could also reveal information on the pathophysiology of human reproduction in recovered men.

However, they acknowledged that more extensive studies should be conducted to confirm these results, and that a control group of men who have recently recovered from other flu-like illnesses should be included to ensure that the results are specific to COVID-19.

Since the end of 2020, when vaccination against COVID-19 began to be launched in the world, myths about inoculants linked to infertility have also been circulating. However, it is proven that vaccines do not cause erectile dysfunction or male infertility. On the other hand, what is true is that coronavirus infection increases the risk of developing these disorders.

Earlier, doctors and researchers at the University of Miami had shed new light on this issue. They revealed potentially far-reaching implications for men of all ages, including younger and middle-aged men who want to have children.

According to Ranjith Ramasamy, director of the Reproductive Urology Program at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami, the autopsy tissues of the testicles of six men who died from the infection were analyzed. The virus appeared in the tissues of one of the men, and in three there appeared a decrease in the number of sperm. Another patient, who survived COVID-19 infection, had a testicle biopsy about three months after his initial COVID-19 infection disappeared. The biopsy showed that the coronavirus was still in his testicles.

“Our team also found that COVID-19 affects the penis. An analysis of penile tissue from two men who received penile implants showed that the virus was present between seven and nine months after their diagnosis of COVID-19. Both men had developed severe erectile dysfunction, probably because the infection had reduced the blood supply to the penis,” said the scientist who published the paper in The World Journal of Men's Health. One of the men in the Miami study had only mild symptoms of COVID-19. The other had been hospitalized. This suggests that even people with a relatively mild case of the virus may experience severe erectile dysfunction after recovery.

What should men who have had COVID-19 do after the dissemination of scientific findings? “Apparently, coronavirus would alter sperm motility, as is the case with other infections. Each sperm takes 73 days to mature and is very vulnerable to infections and other factors. But we must bear in mind that it is not permanently damaged,” the andrologist doctor of the WeFiv fertility clinic in Argentina, Omar Layus, responded to Infobae. “Men who had COVID-19 and who want to have a child just have to continue with the search. If after a lapse of time the pregnancy does not come, you can make a doctor's consultation,” he added.

Other viruses are known to invade the testicles and affect sperm production and fertility. Researchers who studied the testicle tissues of six patients who died from the SARS virus in 2006 found that all of them had widespread cell destruction, with few or no sperm. It is also known that mumps and Zika viruses can enter the testicles and cause inflammation. Up to 20% of men infected with these viruses will have impaired sperm production.

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