Sexual Organs

COVID-19 is probably not sexually transmitted.  SARS-CoV-2 RNA was not found in vaginas of infected women, perhaps because vaginal tissue lacks angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), the cell receptor for SARS-CoV-2 (Cui et al.).  ACE2 is more highly expressed in testes than ovaries, so testes might serve as reservoirs for SARS-CoV-2, and might explain why more men were severely infected than women (Shastri et al.).  No SARS-CoV-2 RNA was found expressed prostatic secretions (EPS) of infected men (Quan et al.), or in semen (Pan X et al.).  So COVID-19 is probably not transmitted sexually, but sexual interactions could transmit it through the other routes described above.