For some people infected with COVID-19, bouncing back from the acute stage of the sickness is just the start.
Disturbing reports now suggest the highly-contagious pathogen may be capable of damaging the lungs, nervous system, and even the heart, and scientists are now closely monitoring to see if the gastrointestinal tract and liver may be vulnerable to the damage as well.
Some individuals also report symptoms that linger on for weeks, even months, after getting the virus, leading some experts to suspect that the pathogen may have the capability to trigger conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome.
Major new research has found that the virus can inflict considerable damage to the heart, with over 50 percent of hospitalized patients showing irregular scans.
A poll conducted by the British Heart Foundation in 69 countries found that 55 percent of the 1,261 patients surveyed had anomalous changes in the way their heart was functioning, with around one in seven exhibiting signs of extreme dysfunction.
The majority of the patients (901) had never before been diagnosed with heart problems, leading health experts to believe that COVID-19 may have a serious impact on the organ itself.
A recent stem cell research has determined that SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus, can infect cells in the heart through the same receptor that is found in the lungs. This may be the cause of the cardiac complications linked with COVID-19.
Scientists thought at first that COVID-19 was a respiratory illness, with symptoms that include shortness of breath, coughing, and pneumonia. However, a growing report of recent proof into COVID-19 indicates that the virus can also inflict cardiac symptoms.
While researchers have been puzzled by the diseases' tendency to damage the lungs, perhaps more disturbing has been its connection with the heart.
More than six months into the global health crisis, medical experts have found that COVID-19 can not only worsen existing heart issues but could also potentially cause new ones, leading scientists to doubt whether the effects of the disease on the human heart may outlast the virus itself.
There is a strong proof now that the virus can directly attack the muscle cells surrounding the heart, and there's also growing evidence that the cytokine storm that the disease unleashes not only ruins the lungs but can damage the heart.
"It could be that we'll have a population of people who survive COVID-19 only to have chronic cardiac problems," John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology in the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program said, Kara Manke, quoted Swartzberg as saying, as published on Goldrushcam.com.
