According to a new study, men are more vulnerable to Coronavirus, due to the presence of testicles.
Researchers in India followed recovery of 68 patients in Mumbai to study the gender disparity of the virus and Dr. Aditi Shastri, an oncologist at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, and her mother, Dr. Jayanthi Shastri — a microbiologist at the Kasturba Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Mumbai have now revealed that the virus attaches itself to a protein that occurs in high levels in the testicles, a preliminary report posted on MedRxix reveals.
According to the study, Coronavirus could linger in men’s testicles as the virus bonds with proteins in the body that are found in the lungs, intestine, heart and also the testicles explaining why the disease is more prevalent in men than women.
Reports show that COVID-19 binds with cells that express the ACE2 protein, or angiotensin converting enzyme 2 which is less prevalent in ovarian tissue.
If it is less prevalent in ovarian tissue but more present in testicular tissue then that means COVID-19 has an extra place to reside in men according to the study.
Dr. Aditi Shastri and Dr. Jayanthi Shastri in a statement said; “These observations demonstrate that male subjects have delayed viral clearance,”
‘High expression of ACE2 RNA and protein in testes leads to the hypothesis that testicular viral reservoirs may exist and play a role in viral persistence, and should be further investigated by larger clinical studies ” the authors wrote, adding that the testicles may be serving as reservoirs for the virus.
A Professor of Virology from the University of Reading, Ian Jones, also told Daily Mail: ‘Men generally do worse than women in immunological outcomes, possibly the result of only one X chromosome, and I think that this imbalance is more likely behind the differences seen.’