Scientists have been doing research on the novel virus for more than a year, this was after the alarm was raised in Wuhan, China about some specific cases of pneumonia back in late 2019. Even though there was not much known about the virus it spread to involve the whole planet’s population of humans.
As the world became aware of this viral disease we built from little to the knowledge we have today. The information we have today is a lot and sometimes is downright contradictory at times, it is however important to stick to trustworthy sources of information. We know how the virus moves from person to person, how infected people present to the hospital, and why the virus can be mild to some people and can be a serious cause of death for others.
New research on the coronavirus by committed researchers may confer solutions to the reason people have severe complications such as heart failure and blood clots due to viral infections.
A patient narrated her ordeal:
Getting home on a Sunday, I realized I couldn’t taste the food in front of me at lunch. I also couldn’t get a smell. This was during the pandemic, after the ease of the lockdown. I couldn’t tell mum. I am just 32, but I remember the year before when I had acute bronchitis. I’d also lost my sense of smell and taste, so I took a break from the kitchen.
Medical scientists have said that these complications which we think are only a result of Covid are not unique to Covid. Inflammation of the heart, nerve, and lung damage, and small blood clots found in the lining of the lungs occur in a little but obvious group of people who have had other viral and respiratory infections. And these patients can also have their own version of “lung Covid.”
No one is inferring that flu, the viral respiratory infection that is annually present in some countries or seasonal in other countries is the same as Covid. This flu has not accounted for deaths in one year as much as Covid did, but patients who have been infected with flu have presented with symptoms that are relevant in Covid, such as difficulty in breathing, breathlessness, sore throat, loss of smell and taste. The research done on Covid is opening up new doors, and helping scientists to understand the complications of many common viral infections.
Danielle R. Reed, an associate director of Monelle Chemical Senses Center, a non-profit research group in Philadelphia accounted that prior to the pandemic, research grants to study loss of smell were rare. She felt that nobody cared about this, but now, there is an overwhelming interest among funders. She added that most people who had lost a sense of taste also lost their sense of smell.
Monell researchers want to make a comparison between the loss of sense of smell after a flu infection and the sense of smell after a Covid infection. Also, is the genetic composition of the affected populace relevant?
Researchers are keen on finding out if people who have had flu infections had complications such as infections and or inflammation of the heart, blood clots, and lung damage. This is relatively new information, and not much has been discovered yet. The reason for this paucity of information may be due to the fact a little number of people affected with respiratory viruses came down with these complications. The knowledge of these conditions and their relativity to the coronavirus spiked during the pandemic.
Heart muscle problems as a result of viral infections are among the most studied conditions. This is called Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle and it affects as many as 1.5 million people worldwide, annually, and this has been linked to people who have had viral respiratory infections. Not all of them recover fully, but a high number do.
Other symptoms like fatigue, weakness, and muscle pain are often not linked to myocarditis and Dr. McManus, thinks that this fatigue following a coronavirus infection might be a consequence of myocarditis.
Dr. Bruce McManus University of British Columbia professor emeritus explained the medical community sees covid-19 as a respiratory disease but the usual cause of death in many cases is due to heart muscle problems.
Some people who have been infected by Covid-19 have damaged lungs. Once the lung is infected or injured, it heals by forming new tissues. This is known as fibrosis, and this fibrosis might make it difficult for the affected people to properly breathe. Thus, they come down with damaged lungs. This can happen in patients who have had other severe viral respiratory infections. Dr. Clemente Britto-Leon, a lung researcher at the Yale School of Medicine has corroborated this. He even listed some possibilities.
Dr. Britto said this about the common virus that is not symptomatic. He said that these viruses can cause damage on rare occasions. He also said that it is possible to have scarring injury to the lungs in influenza, Herpes, and CMV (cytomegalovirus) and that this can present with signs and symptoms of severe injury and tissue destruction.
The Influenza virus can cause blood to clot around the lining of the lungs and this looks like the small blood clots seen in the lungs of coronavirus patients. This was affirmed by Marco Goeijenbier of Erasmus University in the Netherlands. This happens when the virus affects the lower respiratory system, causing the formation of clots through numerous pathways that bypass or override human physiology.
Goeijenbier had interests to commit to the study of blood clots in the lungs of viral respiratory patients, but they were really few. He, however, went further to study this in animals in the laboratory. He also complained of the fact that funding was hard to come by because huge journals and funders did not see it as a worthy study.
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REFERENCES
I'd also like to use this post to raise awareness for
@Davixesk8 whose father is fighting throat cancer. I made him a beneficiary of this post. I hope he gets to know that the community sticks together.
Here is the call for help page
Here is the go fund me address