No proof yet that COVID-19 can be transmitted through sex — Task Force

Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has said it has not been scientifically proved that the Coronavirus infection is sexually transmissible.

National Coordinator of the PTF, Dr Sani Aliyu, stated this on Wednesday during the daily press briefing.

Aliyu was reacting to a question bordering on alleged prove that the virus still remains in male testis after treatment.

The National Coordinator noted that although the virus was still in its early days, no research had proved that it could be transmitted true sex, citing a test carried out on some women who had tested positive for COVID-19, but whose genital secretions tested negative for COVID-19.

“At the moment, there’s no evidence of sexual transmission when it comes to COVID-19, but of course, we are still in the early days of the disease. The same thing happened in the case of Ebola, when subsequently it was proved that it was sexually transmissible.

“There was a small test case series of ten women who had severe COVID-19 and genital secretions were negative of COVID-19 virus. I think it’s still in the early days; I’ll just say, watch this space”, he said.

On the issue of increasing testing rates for the virus across the country, Aliyu explained that though the PTF was experiencing some difficulties in the area of operational efficiency and testing sites, he said the task force was already working on solving that through more collaboration with appropriate partners.

“Yes, we are looking at every possibility of expanding testing, but there are a lot of bottlenecks. Some of the bottlenecks have less to do with the laboratories, but more to do with the operations efficiency and also the availability of easy sampling sites. For example, in Lagos they have a lot of places where people can go to get tested and we are looking at that model.

“We already have the Chief Executive Officer of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib, as part of the task force now. We are working with him closely to see how we can expand testing. All options are on the table,” he said.

– Daily Sun