The temporary impact of COVID-19 on semen deoxyribonucleic acid fragmentation.

Introduction: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is characterized by impact on different systems of human body. Recently, several anti-COVID vaccines have been developed.

Material and methods: In our study, we included two groups of males: GROUP1, anti-COVID vaccinated males, n = 46, and GROUP2, n = 43, non-vaccinated males, who all fell ill with the Coronavirus infection. A level of semen DNA fragmentation was characterized by Sperm DNA Fragmentation Index (SDFI) that was calculated before infection and compared with data at every month after laboratory recovery. The Mann-Whitney test was used to establish differences between parameters, with p <0.05 considered significant.

Results: Compared with the pre-COVID baseline we registered significant increasing of SDFI in each group of participants: 35.3 ±4.7% vs 18.6 ±5.8% in GROUP1, p = 0.0009, and 41.8 ±5.6% vs 19.2 ±6.1% in GROUP2, p = 0.0006. At the 2^nd month after recovery SDFI in GROUP1 and GROUP2 continued to grow and reached its peak to 40.6 ±6.4% and 49.7 ±7.2% respectively. Thereafter SDF indexes in both Groups started to decrease, normalizing at the 7^th month after COVID-19 recovery in GROUP1 and at the 9^th month in GROUP2.

Conclusions: COVID-19 causes a gradual increase in semen DNA fragmentation, which peaks at the 2^nd month after recovery and is more pronounced in unvaccinated men. Normalization of SDFI occurs no earlier than at the 7^th month in vaccinated and at the 9^th month in non-vaccinated men.