Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Apr 26, 2023
Date Accepted: Oct 31, 2023
Date Submitted to PubMed: Nov 17, 2023
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines on Sperm Quality: Current Evidence and Recommendation
ABSTRACT
Background:
SARS-CoV-2 vaccination is a highly effective strategy for preventing infections and severe COVID-19 outcomes. Although several studies have concluded that COVID-19 vaccines are unlikely to affect fertility, concerns have arisen regarding adverse events, including the potential impact on fertility, which is accentuated by limited and inconsistent evidence.
Objective:
This review aims to provide a recent assessment of the literature on the impact of COVID-19 vaccines on male sperm quality.
Methods:
PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane, and the COVID-19 databases of the World Health Organization were searched from their inception to January 2023. Eligible studies included articles reporting SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and human semen quality and fertility, as well as the impact of vaccination on ART treatment outcomes.
Results:
The initial literature search yielded 303 records, 296 of which came from electronic databases and 7 from manual searches. Finally, twenty relevant studies were selected for our study. Our results demonstrated that COVID-19 vaccination has no negative impact on sperm quality.
Conclusions:
Therefore, vaccination represents a prudent choice over experiencing severe adverse effects of viral infection. These findings may help reduce vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccination coverage, particularly among reproductive-age couples. As new controlled trials and prospective cohort studies with larger sample sizes emerge, the possibility of a negative effect of the vaccine on sperm quality must be further clarified.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.