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AFP April 15, 2015
Geneva- Traces of Ebola have been found in the semen of a man six months after his recovery, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, urging survivors to practice safe sex "until further notice".
The man had been declared free of the deadly virus in Liberia last September, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told AFP.
"He has provided a semen sample which has tested... positive for Ebola, 175 days after his negative blood test," he said in an email.
The UN health agency had previously said the virus had been detected in semen around three months after a patient had been declared Ebola free.
The new finding has led WHO to recommend that survivors abstain from having sex or that they practice safe sex using a condom beyond the three-month period previously prescribed.
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Sexual Transmission - Ebola Virus : Evidence & Knowledge Gaps
CLICK HERE - WHO - Sexual transmission of the Ebola Virus : evidence and knowledge gaps
Ebola Researchers Take New Look at Risk of Sexual Transmission
NEW YORK TIMES by Sheri Fink April 17, 2015
Concerned about the potential for sexual transmission of Ebola, international health officials are investigating new reports of suspected cases and beginning studies to determine how often and how long the virus remains active in semen. And, for now, they are warning Ebola survivors to practice protected sex indefinitely....
Public health officials have faced many hurdles in fighting Ebola in West Africa — from changing burial practices to overcoming beliefs that foreign doctors in their moon suits had come to kill rather than cure patients. But perhaps no topic is as intimate and potentially incendiary as sexual transmission.
Experts have deep concerns about how to carry on research without provoking a backlash against their efforts or further stigmatizing survivors.
“There are all the issues we have seen and addressed during H.I.V. at the beginning, including confidentiality, and should the family know or not,” said Dr. Pierre Formenty, an Ebola expert at the World Health Organization. “We underestimate all the effort we’re going to have to make for this type of transmission.”
Already, that effort has stirred controversy...
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/world/africa/ebola-researchers-take-new-look-at-risk-of-sexual-transmission.html?_r=0