According to a study, published on Thursday in the journal JAMA, COVID-19 vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna do not harm male fertility.
The study has discovered that the levels of sperm in participants remained at healthy levels after they got two doses of the mRNA vaccines.
The study recruited 45 healthy male volunteers aged 18 to 50 years scheduled for mRNA COVID-19 vaccination by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
It’s still possible that men who experience post-vaccination side effects may suffer from lower sperm counts for a few weeks, just as they might after a viral infection. But there’s no reason to worry about significant adverse impacts on male fertility, said study co-author Ranjith Ramasamy, MD, of the University of Miami Health System, in an interview with MedPage Today. “People should not be concerned. The vaccines are very safe.”
The participants were pre-screened to ensure they had no underlying fertility issues. Those with COVID-19 symptoms or a positive test result within 90 days were excluded.
The men provided a semen sample after two to seven days of abstinence, prior to receiving the first vaccine dose and approximately 70 days after the second shot.
“The real threat to male sexual health is COVID-19 itself. The virus has been linked to lower sperm production and higher rates of erectile dysfunction.” added Ramasamy.
According to the researchers, “the limitations of the study include the small number of men enrolled; limited generalizability beyond young, healthy men; short follow-up; and lack of a control group. In addition, while semen analysis is the foundation of male fertility evaluation, it is an imperfect predictor of fertility potential.”
