Male Ebola survivors should wear condoms for three months
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
New York: Men who have recovered from Ebolamust wait for unprotected
sex for at least three months, researchers have suggested.
"Our exercise demonstrated that the current recommendations to prevent
the sexual spread of Ebola are based on one mere observation," the
researchers wrote.
"Despite the evident need to conduct more research, for now,
healthcare professionals should strongly recommend sexual abstinence
or condom-protected sex for at least three months," they added.
Walter Cardona-Maya, Paula Velilla Hernandez and Daniel Henao studied
research from 1977 to 2007 on men in the convalescent phase of the
Ebola virus (symptoms were fading and they were in recovery).
They found only four studies that report male survivors of Ebola
donated convalescent semen.
For these men, the virus persisted in their semen for an average of
66.6 days, and in one case, it persisted for 91 days.
"The current Ebola virus disease outbreak is the longest and largest
we have ever seen. Nonetheless, our results clearly demonstrate how
much we ignore about it. Larger studies are needed to establish the
social, clinical and biological determinants of this neglected
disease," they noted.
The study was published in the journal Reproductive Sciences.
Credit: IANS