Long-term Covid patients more likely to have multiple organ abnormalities – Dainik Savera Times

OXFORD: It wasn’t long ago that some people speculated that there was no such thing as long-term COVID illness and that it was just a myth. Thankfully, that period of speculation is now behind us. We have strong evidence that Long Covid is very real and very harmful. I’m the principal investigator of an ongoing study called C-MORE, which looks at the long-term harm caused by COVID. Our latest findings, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, show that in a third of people seriously ill with Covid, there were multiple organ abnormalities on MRI five months after being discharged from hospital.

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It is based on a sample of 259 people who were hospitalized with Covid and a control group of 52 people who did not get Covid. MRI scans showed that people with long Covid were 14 times more likely to have lung abnormalities than people who never had the disease, three times more likely to have brain abnormalities and three times more likely to have kidney abnormalities. The probability was twice as high. The extent of MRI abnormalities was related to the severity of their Covid, their age and whether they had other diseases. People with long COVID who had abnormalities involving more than two organs were four times more likely to report “severe” or “very severe” mental and physical impairment.

When COVID first emerged, doctors considered it a respiratory disease, with patients reporting symptoms such as severe cough, shortness of breath, and pneumonia. But as our global understanding of the disease evolved, so did this complex disease. Our understanding of the disease also increased. Reports began to emerge that the virus was capable of affecting not only the lungs but also other organs such as the heart, kidneys, brain and blood vessels, causing widespread damage.

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Studies also began to emerge identifying viral proteins in various organs, demonstrating the virus’ predilection for certain tissues that were not part of the lungs. Originally, the main theory was that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) was directly infecting cells in multiple organs. But, as the data accumulated, a more nuanced understanding emerged. It was observed that in some patients, the immune system, in its defense against the virus, overreacted, resulting in a “cytokine storm”. This hyperactive immune response was not always discriminatory, leading to unintended damage to organs under direct viral attack.

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Further reports highlight the propensity of the virus to induce excessive clotting, mitochondrial disruption (mitochondria are the powerhouse of our cells) and reactivation of other viruses. More importantly, even after surviving the initial infection, there were a growing number of patients reporting persistent disabling symptoms arising from multiple organs, also known as long COVID, a condition Which now affects one in ten people.