After contracting a coronavirus infection, millions of individuals continue to suffer from tiredness, cognitive impairments, and other long-term effects for years. The specific aetiology of the sickness, which is referred to as long Covid, is unknown. New study, however, provides some explanations, outlining the toll the sickness takes on the body and why it may be so severe in certain cases.
Patients suffering from severe Covid may be admitted to hospitals or placed on ventilators until their symptoms subside. In most cases, damage to the body caused by severe Covid — such as pneumonia, low oxygen levels, and inflammation — may be detected by routine diagnostic testing.
Long Covid is distinct in that it is a chronic condition characterised by a broad range of symptoms, many of which are not explainable by traditional laboratory testing. Medics have been reluctant to treat patients because of difficulties in diagnosing the ailment, leading some to ignore them or misdiagnose their symptoms as psychosomatic. However, when researchers looked more closely at long-term Covid patients, they saw apparent malfunction all across the body.
Infection with the coronavirus may cause long-term symptoms in 10 to 30 percent of those who are affected, according to research estimates. The exact cause of extended Covid is unknown, but four variables seem to enhance the risk: high amounts of viral RNA early in an infection, the presence of certain autoantibodies, the reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus, and the existence of Type 2 diabetes.
Individuals who have been on Covid for a long period of time tend to have immune systems that have been damaged, as opposed to post-Covid patients who have recovered completely. The persistent immunological dysfunction that results from a coronavirus infection, according to several studies, may cause a cascade of symptoms throughout the body.
One hypothesis is that the body is still engaged in a battle against the coronavirus’s remains. According to the findings, the virus spreads extensively after an initial infection, and that viral genetic material may stay buried in tissues — including the intestines, lymph nodes, and other organs — for many months after the virus has been eliminated.
Ongoing research is attempting to discover whether or whether these viral reservoirs generate inflammation in the surrounding tissues, which might result in symptoms such as cognitive fog, gastrointestinal disorders, and other complications.
Researchers have also discovered evidence that Covid may cause a long-lasting and perhaps harmful immunological reaction. Many months after an initial infection, researchers discovered remarkably large amounts of autoantibodies, which wrongly target a patient’s own tissues, in the blood of patients.
In a third scenario, the initial viral infection causes persistent inflammation in the patient’s body, presumably by reactivating additional viruses that are typically latent in the patient’s body. According to one research, the reactivation of the Epstein-Barr virus, which infects the majority of individuals while they are young, may aid in predicting whether a person may develop long Covid.
In the complex world of the immune system, it is possible that these two interpretations coexist. Furthermore, just as various long-term Covid patients may exhibit a variety of symptoms, they may also exhibit a variety of immunological issues. Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University, believes that identifying the issues that are at the heart of each patient’s condition will be crucial in directing therapy.
Shortness of breath is a common symptom of long-term Covid exposure. However, standard lung examinations — such as chest X-rays, CT scans, and functional tests — often reveal no abnormalities.
A team of British researchers discovered early indications of lung injury in a small cohort of long-term Covid users who had never been hospitalised, thanks to the use of specialist magnetic resonance imaging scans. Detailed scans of their lung function revealed that, despite the fact that the anatomy of their lungs looked to be normal, the vast majority of the patients were unable to absorb oxygen as effectively as healthy persons.
The researchers noted that a bigger sample of patients would be required to validate their results in the future. According to the findings, plausible reasons for the reported shortness of breath include the presence of microclots in lung tissues or the thickening of the blood-air barrier, which governs the intake of oxygen by the lungs. If the findings are confirmed,
The brains of long-term Covid patients were shown to have a broad variety of malfunction, according to the researchers. Even moderate infections, according to the researchers, who included Dr. Nath, Dr. Iwasaki, and Dr. Michelle Monje, a neurologist at Stanford, seem to induce considerable brain inflammation, despite the fact that it is unknown how frequently the virus actually reaches the brain.
Viruses and infections may cause overactivation of immune cells known as microglia, in a manner that is very similar to the process that might contribute to cognitive impairments associated with ageing and certain neurodegenerative disorders.
