Covid-19 can spread rapidly throughout the body and remain in the heart, brain and other organs for months, a study published in the journal Nature has shown.
Washington: A new study found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can spread throughout the body, including the brain, and persists for nearly eight months. The study showed analyzes of tissue samples from autopsies of people who died due to COVID-19. Researchers at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) analyzed autopsy samples that were performed between April 2020 and March 2021. They took extensive samples from the nervous system, including the brain, in 11 of the patients. All patients died with COVID-19 and none were vaccinated.
The Covid virus and its impact on the body and brain
- The study, published in the journal Nature, showed that SARS-CoV-2 mainly infected and damaged the airways and lung tissue.
- However, the researchers also found viral RNA in 84 different locations in the body and body fluids, and in one case they isolated viral RNA 230 days after the patient’s symptoms began.
- They detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA and protein in the hypothalamus and cerebellum of one patient and in the spinal cord and basal ganglia of two other patients.
- However, the study found little damage to brain tissue, “despite the substantial viral load.”
- The researchers also isolated viable SARS-CoV-2 virus from various tissues inside and outside the respiratory tract, including the brain, heart, lymph nodes, gastrointestinal tract, adrenal gland, and eye.
Blood plasma from 38 patients tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, three tested negative, and plasma was unavailable for the other three. 30% of the patients were women and the median age was 62.5 years. Twenty-seven patients (61.4 percent) had three or more comorbidities.
The median interval from symptom onset to death was 18.5 days. Prior to this study, “the thinking in the field was that SARS-CoV-2 was predominantly a respiratory virus,” added the study’s lead author, Daniel Chertow, of the NIH.
