Semen Does Not Cause Additional Risk for SARS-CoV-2 Transmission during Sexual Contact

Abstract

Dear Editor, We read the letter to the editor by V. Wiwanitkit with the title “SARS-CoV-2 in semen” [1]. The author emphasizes that even if semen has a very low possibility for transmission of the virus, the disease can be transmitted by the respiratory route due to the very close contact between partners. Actually, we think the same as the author. Transmission with respiratory secretions during sexual contact poses a much greater risk than the transmission through semen [2, 3]. We think that even if severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is detected in a patient's semen sample, it is quite difficult to say that the transmission between partners has solely been through semen. As the risk of transmission with respiratory secretion is clearly defined from the beginning of the pandemic, we did not have a need to emphasize this point. In our study, we only aimed to investigate the role of semen in disease transmission. The risk of respiratory contact or other risky behaviors that are revealed during sexual activity was not mentioned. Our study argues that there is probably no additional transmission risk via semen. The available data also support our study that SARS-CoV-2 is not a sexually transmitted virus [4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. However, sexual contact carries a high risk in terms of SARS-CoV-2 transmission between partners through the respiratory secretions, not semen. Conflict of Interest Statement There is no conflict of interest. Author Contributions All authors searched the literature and argued the text. Bircan Kayaaslan wrote the letter. All authors read and accepted the final version.