Hey everybody, Dr. Nick here with a new blog for you, for May 16th, 2026. And today I want to talk to you about the hantavirus. And yes, I already know it is a very popular topic worldwide, and on May 15th, an additional variable regarding hantavirus was added to the equation. An article appeared in Scientific American that said the “Hantavirus can persist in semen for years but that does not mean that it stays contagious.” From that, dozens of smaller news organizations picked up the information and ran with it, but let’s break it down.
On May 15th, 2026, the World Health Organization convened a meeting to discuss hantavirus. Basically, they explained that many studies are underway to clarify how long people with the virus are actually infectious. One of the researchers at the meeting said, “essentially what this study will do is look at regular sampling of individuals who are in a quarantine to look at (1) are they infected, but (2) are they infectious?”
This article goes on to mention a case study where “a 55-year-old Swiss man who traveled from Ecuador to Chile in 2016 began showing symptoms of the hantavirus. After he returned home, he tested positive for the Andes, and a follow-up exam conducted six years after the infection, vestiges of the virus’s RNA were found in the man’s semen.”
The idea that got the most attention was where a scientist believes that the presence of the virus seems to hint at the possibility that it may be capable of sexual transmission, but that is difficult to say conclusively. The researcher continued by saying, “The virus could be inside the immune cells within the body that killed it, but we’re still able to detect the genomic materials.”
To add a bit of clarification in this research article, an immunologist at the University of New Mexico added, “whether the pathogen remains infectious can vary from virus to virus.” He continued by saying that, “there are certain sites in your body, like semen or the eye, called immune-privileged sites.” He added that sometimes there’s not as much clearance of pathogens from those areas, but we don’t know if that means that it’s infectious or it just represents leftover RNA.”
To close out this blog, let me say this. It seems like once again, the media was able to use sex and sexual health to increase sales and bring attention to their blogs and YouTube pages. My suggestion is that they spend less time generating fear and concern within the populations and instead focus on promoting accurate and healthy information on other important health issues, like finding a cure for HIV. Please feel free to leave a comment below on articles about hantavirus mimicking a sexually transmitted disease. Thank you for reading, Dr. Nick.