The potential for Zika to be spread sexually has just increased massively , as investigator have base that the virus can still be detected in the sperm of septic menup to six calendar month afterbeing diagnose with the disease . This worrying development could see the recommendation from the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control modification , as they number to terms with the ever - shifting evidence and how best to distribute with it .
The farseeing the virus had been detected in semen previously was up to 93 days after diagnosis , or just over three months , whereas this late report has almost doubled that period . It now raises the very veridical possibility that this virus can replicate itself in the venereal tract of men , think that even without the mosquitos that normally spread the disease , Zika can still be authorize on , although it is as yet unnamed whether or not the virus detected in the sperm in this late work can take to infection .
The enquiry is establish on body of work carry out by doc at theSpallanzani Institute of Infectious Diseasesin Rome . They have been following an Italian human being in his 40 who contracted Zika while on a two - week trip to Haiti in January this year . Since returning home and showing symptom of the disease , he has been regularly test for the computer virus . The medico found that while it could be observe in his blood up to five days after infection , and urine up to two weeks after , it prevail in his saliva for 47 days and worryingly was still being detect in his semen 181 solar day later .
The results go to show how the Zika outbreak in the Americas is a unendingly uprise situation that necessitate constant monitoring . While much of the focus has been on the spread of the disease via mosquitos , there is a growing awareness that intimate transmission system of the virus also needs vital care . Currently , the rule of thumb body politic that man who have been name with Zika should practice good sexual urge for up to six months after signal detection , though in the light of this newfangled evidence it is likely that those recommendations will now have to be revise .
With an gauge 1.5 million masses already having been infect with Zika in the Americas , andthe first casesof mosquito spreading the virus in the United States , there has been a huge thrust to develop an effective vaccine against the disease . There have beensome tentative successes , and human trials for some have even been O.K. , but the likeliness that these will quick for the current irruption is not particularly dependable .
