A study by the National Institute for Infectious Diseases (INMI) detected the presence of the virus in an Italian man’s sperm.
Dengue fever is caused by the Dengue virus and is usually contracted through mosquitoes. There is no cure for the illness.
The
Dengue virus is part of the Flaviviridae family, the same scientific
system that includes other viruses like Zika, Yellow Fever and
encephalaitis, with extreme symptoms including neurological disorders,
heart disease and liver failure.
The bite of a mosquito carrying the Zika virus can cause birth
defects in babies as the virus can be passed from a pregnant woman to
her foetus. Men can also pass the virus through their semen.
And now, like Zika, a new risk of men passing Dengue fever through sexual intercourse could become a reality.
The
study, published in Eurosurveillance , shows for the first time the
presence of the Dengue virus in the semen of a man who had recently
healed following a recent infection with dengue
Researchers at INMI found that the
virus persists in active replication in the seminal fluid and in
particular in its cellular fraction up to 37 days after the onset of
symptoms.
Tests were performed at the Institute's
virology laboratory using molecular biology techniques on the
50-year-old man, who returned from Thailand in January 2018 with the
infection.
Dengue
fever’s symptoms include arthralgia, asthenia and nausea. The unnamed
man still displayed symptoms after the ninth day of infection.
Further
virological investigations were performed on semen and urine samples.
Semen is said to be able to hold up to 27 viruses at one time.
The institute's findings highlight the possibility of transmitting
DENV through sexual intercourse, which could play a role in an infection
spreading to non-endemic areas.
Previously, no similar cases had
been reported, that fact that in 2016 alone, 2,601 travel-associated
dengue cases were reported to The European Surveillance System (TESSy)
at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
However, the findings are yet to be corroborated.
Further
studies are yet to be carried out, in order to quantify and clarify the
implications of genital shedding of DENV for non-vector sexual
transmission.
Source:
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