A 44-year-old Liberia woman in Liberia contracted Ebola through sexual intercourse with a survivor of the disease.

On Friday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that the women's case review has suggested that the Ebola virus persists longer in semen that previously thought.

The health officials are conducting further studies to find for how long the deadly Ebola remains viable in body fluids of male and female survivors.

Both the CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) are urging people to avoid contact with the semen of Ebola survivors. They are also recommending male survivors to refrain from oral, vaginal, or anal sex or use a condom every time.

The CDC said that the woman who contracted Ebola didn't come in contact with anyone displaying symptoms of Ebola before sexual intercourse. She was found to have the virus in mid-March, just a week after she had sex with a man who reported symptoms of Ebola about five months earlier (September).

After experiencing Ebola-like symptoms, when he was tested in September, one test came back positive and another came back negative.

When an additional that was conducted a week after came back negative, he was discharged from a treatment unit.

When the man was tested again, his blood sample showed no signs of Ebola. However, it confirmed that the virus was present in a sample of his semen.

A partial genome sequence of the virus RNA found in the semen closely matched a sequence taken from the woman.

This incident has made Ebola the first confirmed case of sexual transmission and at the same time prompted further research that confirms the possibility of contraction though sexual intercourse. A recent case in West Africa has also suggested that infection through sex can also happen after five months.