Semen may have been hiding a deathly enigma . It turn out that sperm cell can host at least27 different virus , incorporating a diverse range of the infective broker , and potentially playing a self-aggrandising role in the spread of diseases than we previously think .
The discovery came after the news broke that the Zika virus can go in semenfor up to six monthsafter infection . This determination inspired a pair of researcher from the University of Oxford to look at what other viruses can survive in sperm cell but they found small work on the subject .
So they ran a search through the literature on the connection between viruses and semen , sperm , and seminal fluid , and happen upon to their surprise that there were quite a few model . It turns out that there are at least 27 unlike virus that have been reported in semen and at least 11 that are able to exist in the bollock . These finding were published in the journalEmerging Infectious disease .
We all sleep together that some viruses , such as HIV and hepatitis , can be spread through seminal fluid , but the results threw up a whole innkeeper of other viruses which we know less about . The various orbit of families that these viruses derive from suggests that their power to be in the testes and the male reproductive piece of land is improbable to depend on specific or conserved mechanisms within the computer virus .
The authors do , however , mention that there may be other factors influencing whether or not a guy is harboring viruses in his semen . For example , if a mortal is immunosuppressed from another contagion , this could allow viruses to live on . Other sexually transmitted infection might even play a function . As this latest subject area was only a lit analytic thinking , we still do n’t know for certain .
The analytic thinking could not see whether or not all the virus detected in seed are sexually transmitted , but it does arouse some significant questions about the role spermatozoon may have in spreading infections throughout a population , something that has loosely been overlooked . The results also indicate that some of these computer virus are able to alter the DNA of spermatozoan entail that computer virus - induced mutations could be passed on to a man ’s children .
Therefore , the researchers are warning that far more study should be transmit out to ascertain on the dot whether , and if so how , these viruses bump in the semen and testes can remain viable and infectious , and hence if they can be sexually transmitted .
