According to a recent study by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the SARS-CoV-2 virus can spread to the heart and brain within a few days of initial infection and survive for months in various organs.
According to the study authors, the virus has the ability to infect almost any organ and spread to all systems of the body, which may explain the continuing symptoms observed in patients with long-term COVID disease. The study, which is being evaluated for publication in the journal Nature, is considered one of the most comprehensive reviews of how the virus reproduces in human cells and stays in the human body for a long time. The Doctors of the Therapeutic Clinic, Eleni Koromboki and Thanos Dimopoulos (Rector of EKPA) summarize the main findings of the study.
According to the authors, including Ziyad Al-Aly, Director of the Center for Clinical Epidemiology at the Veterans Health Care System of St. Louis in Missouri, USA, is an important study that explains why the virus can affect almost all systems and why long-term COVID can affect people who have had asymptomatic disease or mild symptoms during the acute phase of COVID. 19.
The researchers analyzed biopsies from necropsy material in 44 patients who died of COVID-19 during the first year of the pandemic. Small parts of the virus were detected in various parts of the body including the heart and brain up to 230 days after the onset of symptoms. This could represent infection with “defective” parts of the virus, which has been observed in other persistent infections, among patients with measles.
Unlike other necropsy studies after COVID-19, the NIH team had a more complete post-mortem collection process, which usually took place within one day of the patient’s death. The researchers also used different ways of preserving the tissue to detect the virus. In addition they were able to develop the virus collected from various tissues, including the heart, lungs, small intestine and adrenal glands.
According to the authors, the overall results of the study show that while the highest load of SARS-CoV-2 virus is found in the airways and lungs, the virus can spread early in the early stages of infection and infect cells throughout the body, including the brain.
Raina MacIntyre, PhD, Professor of Global Biosafety at the University of New South Wales, pointed out that the effects of COVID-19 chronic load on the coming years remain unknown. Cases of heart failure or early-onset dementia are unlikely to occur in patients with COVID-19. The hitherto unanswered questions about the long-term complications of the virus call for a precautionary strategy in public health to mitigate the spread of the virus.
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