Russian health minister claims women with more than 7 sexual partners will be infertile

A health minister in Russia has claimed that women could become infertile if they have seven or more sexual partners.

Vladimir Viktorov, 48, said: ‘If a woman has seven men before the birth of her first child, then that means 100 percent she will be infertile.’

Unsurprisingly, he has been roundly mocked for his bizarre, incorrect and slut-shaming comment. One social media comment read: ‘It is clear that some people haven’t yet evolved from apes, which doesn’t stop them from being ministers.’ A woman said: ‘You don’t know whether to laugh or cry. And why did he say seven men? Why not six or eight?’

Viktorov is health minister in Chuvashia, one of Russia’s poorest regions, some 44 miles east of Moscow. He made his bizarre claim in front of an audience of 200, sparking immediately murmurs of dissent.

But he insisted: ‘This information is a fact. It’s an interesting subject, yes? Everyone’s getting worked up now. Think about it.’ Later he got his department’s leading physician Sergei Milayev to elaborate on his claim. Even a small number of sexual partners – and frequently changing them – ‘can lead to tubal peritoneal infertility’ he said.