00:00On this occasion, we're going to talk about the big elephant in the room
00:03which we all try to forget from five years ago, the big COVID.
00:13So the key issues today is whether COVID itself, five years down the line,
00:20is resulting in any impairment of sexual and reproductive dysfunctions
00:25and also whether the vaccine, the big question, is affecting you sexually and reproductively.
00:31Let's deal with the short-term problems.
00:34We all recall during the infections of COVID, there were many, many issues.
00:40We found out that men who had COVID actually have inflammatory changes in their genitalia,
00:46inflammatory changes in the testicle and also drop in hormone.
00:50That itself has three major impacts.
00:52Number one, reductions of the libido because testosterone drops.
00:57Generally, that is the case.
00:58And also, there's some element of stress as well.
01:01Remember that time when you have a lockdown and everything
01:04and that itself probably will put a lot of significant suppression on your testosterone.
01:10The second problem after the COVID is inflammation.
01:14The inflammatory changes actually impede the blood flow towards the penis
01:18resulting in also erectile dysfunction.
01:21Clearly, it's also influenced by stress.
01:24The third problem actually is related to the changes in the testicle.
01:29It was found out that men who had biopsied a testicle
01:32had significant reduction in the sperm quality.
01:36So, five years down the line,
01:38what seems to be the problems with patients who were affected by COVID?
01:43In fact, it depends on the severity of the COVID.
01:45The vast majority of us, the COVID itself was transiently causing severe infection
01:50and subsequently, we recovered quite well.
01:53And therefore, hormonally, reproductively and also vascularly,
01:58we actually have no impact at all.
02:01However, people who ended up in ICU may ended up having issues such as erectile dysfunction,
02:08mainly due to the suppressions of their reproductive hormone,
02:12such as testosterone.
02:14So, that itself may be carrying on as a time go by,
02:19as a chronic disease, rather than a transient inflammatory changes.
02:23What about the vaccine?
02:25I category can tell you that,
02:28number one, there's no associations of vaccine causing infertility.
02:32Vaccine is safe for pregnancy.
02:34Vaccine doesn't cause erectile dysfunction.
02:37Vaccine definitely does not reduce your libido due to lower testosterone.
02:41So, the vaccine itself, whichever one you took,
02:45has no impact long-term on your reproductive and sexual health.
02:51For the following week, we're going to dwell into another big issues of the infection,
02:57but this one has no vaccine.
02:59This one only have antiviral.
03:01We're going to talk about HIV,
03:03how is men or women living with HIV is affecting their sexual and reproductive health,
03:09and what sort of antiviral treatments available.
03:11Stay tuned for next week's Putting Dr. G on the Spot.
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