Medics in China have urged men who recovered from coronavirus to take fertility tests as the infection may have damaged their testicles.
While there is no study that proved the virus will affect men’s sexual potency and fertility, doctors in Wuhan have suggested the probability of the disease reducing men’s formation of sex hormones and their production of sperm.
Even though the killer virus mainly targets a person’s immune system and lungs, it could impair a man’s reproductive system, according to Tongji Hospital in Wuhan.
The surprising statements were made by Professor Li Yufeng and his team.
Affiliated to Huazhong University of Science and Technology, the Tongji Hospital is one of the facilities designed to treat coronavirus patients.
Experts said that the new coronavirus enters human cells and causes damage to tissue by binding its spike protein to cell membrane protein ACE2.
Apart from lungs, ACE2 or angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 is present in other human organs and can be abundant in men’s testes.
The doctors also added that during the SARS outbreak, experts observed serious immune system damage in some male patient’s testicles.
According to the study, men could suffer inflammation in their reproductive system even though medics didn’t detect the SARS-CoV in patients’ testicles.
Because the new coronavirus is very similar to SARS, they concluded that in theory, the new killer virus could also cause damage to male patients’ testicles.
“Therefore, for men who have had the infection, especially those who need to reproduce, it is best to undergo relevant fertility tests, such as sperm quality and hormone level tests, upon recovery to detect possible problems as soon as possible,” the report wrote.
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