Studies show that men's sperm quality is getting worse around the world, which can affect their ability to have children. There is not much information about this in North Africa, a region with special environmental and lifestyle factors. The COVID-19 pandemic might have also influenced men's fertility. This study looked at sperm samples from men in three North African countries between 2019 and 2024 and compared them to samples from 2013 to 2018. The goal was to see if sperm quality changed and if COVID-19 had any effect. The results showed that in 2020, when COVID-19 first appeared, sperm numbers and how well they moved dropped a lot. After 2021, there was some improvement, but sperm quality was still lower in 2024 than before the pandemic. The shape of sperm got worse steadily over the years. Men from Libya had the best sperm counts, while men from Algeria had the lowest. In short, sperm quality in North African men got worse over the years, especially during COVID-19. This shows that many things may be causing this problem, and it is important to take steps to protect men's reproductive health.
BenKhalifa et al. (Thu,) studied this question.