Sex and Masturbation a Risk to Ebola. WHO

Geneva – The WHO has advised all male
survivors of Ebola to be tested three months
after the onset of symptoms and then monthly
until they know they have no risk of passing on
the virus through their Fluid.

Bruce Aylward, Head of the WHO’s Ebola
Response, said on Thursday in Geneva that
isolated flare-ups of Ebola may point to a higher
risk of transmission via the Fluid of male
survivors than previously thought.

“It’s not the sex that is dangerous; it’s the
Fluid that is dangerous. How people actually
get exposed, in soiled linens or whatever, is not
clear.

“Transmission through Fluid may explain why
a few cases continue to occur even though the
outbreak has been almost completely eradicated
by an intense international effort, recently
bolstered by the deployment of a trial vaccine in
Guinea and Sierra Leone,’’ he said.

Aylward said the latest flare-up, in a village on
the northern border of Sierra Leone, followed
the death of a 67-year-old woman late last
month, 50 days after the previous confirmed
case in the region.

He said transmission chains are considered to
have been broken after 42 days with no new
infections.

However, Aylward said that sexual transmission
was “obviously not a huge risk, because if it
were we would have seen a lot more in the
areas that were hardest hit at the beginning of
this outbreak.”

He said this could undermine the hope of
ending the outbreak in West Africa by 2015.
A clinician said on condition of anonymity, that a
forthcoming study in the New England Journal of
Medicine, based on around 200 survivors, found
that around half still had traces of the virus in
their Fluid after six months.

“The old advice of three months is no longer
good.

“The number of people with persistent virus in
their Fluid is much greater than expected,”
clinician said.

The clinician added that the risk might not only
be from sex but also from masturbation.
(Reuters/NAN)