A new study shows that coronavirus can infect organs throughout the body, including lungs, throat, heart, liver, brain, kidneys and the intestines, re
A new study shows that coronavirus can infect organs throughout the body, including lungs, throat, heart, liver, brain, kidneys and the intestines, researchers have reported. Two separate reports suggest the virus goes far beyond the lungs and can attack various organs.
The findings might help explain some of the puzzling symptoms seen in coronavirus patients. They include blood clots that cause strokes in younger people and that clog dialysis machines headaches and kidney failure.
COVID-19 isn’t just a respiratory disease, it hits the whole body. Classified as a respiratory virus, it is transmitted through respiratory droplets, but it can also sometimes cause diarrhea and other gastrointestinal symptoms. Researchers have found evidence of the virus in the stool of patients, and warn that it can be transmitted via what’s known as the fecal-oral route.
A team at University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany performed autopsies on 27 patients who died from Covid-19. They found the virus in a variety of organs.
“SARS-CoV-2 can be detected in multiple organs, including the lungs, pharynx, heart, liver, intestines, brain, and kidneys,” they wrote in a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The virus seemed to do especially well in the kidneys, they wrote — something that might explain the high rate of kidney injury seen among Covid-19 patients. The ability of the virus to attack various organs might aggravate pre-existing conditions, they added. People with heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease are especially vulnerable to the new coronavirus.
