No Proof Of COVID-19 Transmission Through Sex - PTF

The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on the Coronavirus, on Wednesday, said that there is currently no proof that coronavirus can be transmitted through sex.

The National Coordinator of PTF, Sani Aliyu, while reacting to claims that coronavirus can be transmitted through male testis after treatment said it was yet to be ascertained, as the country is still in early days of the pandemic.

Speaking during the daily press briefing, Aliyu said: “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.

Also speaking on the issue of increasing testing rates for the virus across Nigeria, he said: “Yes, we are looking at every possibility of expanding testing, but there are a lot of bottlenecks.

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“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.