This isn't necessarily shocking news as it's actually quite commonfor viruses to be found in the bodily fluids of humans including semen. The researchers noted that there have actually been 27 viruses found in human semen.
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Dr. Ryan Berglund from the Cleveland Clinic's Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute said:
It's not surprising that the virus was found in semen samples, since it's also been found in stool and other body fluids.
While Berglund insists that these findings (the virus was seen in only 6 of the 38 men who gave samples) are not indicative of COVID-19 having sexual transmission abilities, it is essentially agreed upon by the medical community that further study is needed.
Dr. Greg Poland, director of the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota stated:
To me, it raises a warning, and now we have to attend to that warning and do the research.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, from Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, agrees that more research is needed, however, both Poland and Adalja doubt that coronaviruscan be passed on through sexual intercourse. Dr. Adalja explained:
We know the virus is transmitted efficiently through the respiratory route and we have not seen any documented cases of sexual transmission, therefore this may not necessarily represent proof of sexual transmissibility via the male genital tract.
Poland also added that the tests carried out in the study only search for traces of coronavirus, it cannot tell whether the semen samples actually contain whole, infectious forms of the virus, therefore, even if a test is positive it doesn't necessarily mean it has the capability to infect anyone.
