When the only way to get an often fatal disease is through contact with body fluids, it makes good sense to be very careful about sexual partners and practices. But since Ebola victims can infect others only when they are showing symptoms — high fever, vomiting, diarrhea, weakness and aches — physical intimacy probably isn’t a common way of transmitting the disease.
However, the Ebola virus can survive in semen for months after a man recovers from the infection, posing an ongoing threat to sexual partners long after he is well. At a time when a man’s bloodstream is swimming with antibodies, and he is immune to the disease, he still may be able to infect others. . . .
The magnitude of the threat is not entirely clear, however. After past Ebola outbreaks, follow-up studies of people who have recovered from Ebola found no evidence that the virus was transmitted from a recovered patient to close contacts, according to Bruce Ribner, medical director of Emory University’s Infectious Disease Unit, who led the team that successfully treated American missionaries Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol.
Yeah, I’d err on the side of safety.