Organs Affected by Coronavirus

19 Jan 2021

Now we are increasingly hearing that post convalescent patients experience bizarre symptoms like inability to smell, ringing sensations in the ear, burning sensation, diarrhoea,cardiac irregularities, deep vein thrombosis, stroke,disorientation and so on. Normally, after a severe viral infection, one can get post viral fatigue syndrome causing excessive sleep and weakness of the body. In fact this RNA virus is more virulent and inflicts more tissue damage. Corona virus with its spike protein, attaches to specific receptor known as ACE2 ( Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2) on the surface of the cell. This helps the virus to pass through into the cell. The virus turns the cell into a factory producing millions of viruses. This can be breathed out causing infection to others. One unique disastrous feature of the corona virus infection is that it does not evoke a distress response in the cell to produce antibody immediately.

ACE2 receptors are not only found in lungs, but also found in cardiac muscles,kidneys, blood vessels, pancreas,liver, intestine and central nervous system. Sense of smell is lost, when olfactory nerve centres are affected. Involvement of other centres of the brain causes symptoms like tinnitus, disorientation and motor neurone paralysis. Involvement of the cardiac muscles causes, irregular heart beating and heart failure. If the blood vessels are affected, deep vein thrombosis can result. Later the body reacts by over activity of immune system through cytokines. This is a complex interplay of chemicals, causing blood pressure to drop, and the inflammatory cells to accumulate. At this point steroids like Dexamethasone help to reduce immunity, inflammation and exudates.

While describing the above in an alarming way, 45% of patients may not get any symptoms at all. About the next 40% recovers after two weeks. Only a small percentage gets extra pulmonary infection. The rate of fatality of Covid-19 varies from 0.2% in Germany to 7.7% in Italy. But the people should be aware of the catastrophic nature of Covid-19 infection, which might help them to adopt preventative methods.

This blog is about my experience as a doctor working in various countries in different clinical set up. This experience spans through 45 years, in which I acquired a lot of favourable contacts and unfavourable encounters. I shall dig deep into them and make it interesting to the readers. Unlike others in the profession, I worked as a community medical officer in a remote areas, prison medical officer, benefit service medical officer, in cardiac surgery in prestigious institutions and as a private doctor. I was managing my own businesses, and real estate in three continents. I hope the information I impart will be valuable to the like minded readers.