Initially, Covid-19 was only considered a respiratory illness. However, the virus does not only spread there. The pathogen is particularly damaging to the kidneys.
Hamburg (dpa) - According to a study by the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), the new corona virus also affects numerous other organs. "Sars-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus, is not just a lung virus, but a multi-organ virus," said study leader Tobias Huber.
This has been shown by studies of 27 patients who died from Covid-19. Another study at the UKE will examine the frequency and severity of infections in children.
Kidneys most commonly affected
The kidney is the second most affected organ in the disease after the lungs, "not infrequently up to total organ failure," said Huber, director of III. Medical clinic and polyclinic at UKE. In addition, the pathogen in the heart, liver, brain and blood of the patients had been detected. The highest concentrations were found in the cells of the respiratory tract.
Infection of the kidneys is probably the reason why Covid 19 sufferers often have abnormalities in the urine, said Huber. "It could also explain the extremely high rate of up to 50 percent of acute kidney failure in Covid 19 patients."
The possible infestation of other organs must be taken into account when treating corona patients. "We have to keep an eye on all the symptoms, not just the shortage of air," said Huber. Further studies should also clarify to what extent changes in the urine could serve as an early warning system for severe Covid 19 courses.
So far at least eleven Covid-19 deaths have been autopsied in Berlin. This emerges from a response by the Senate Department for Health to a parliamentary question from left-wing MP Wolfgang Albers. Blood poisoning in pneumonia (four cases), lung failure (three cases) and heart failure (two cases) were the most common causes of death. In all eleven cases, the Charité Institute of Pathology determined that the causes of death were "causally caused by Covid-19", it said.
New study researches Covid-19 in children
The new study C19.Child Hamburg is intended to show how often children and adolescents become infected and how susceptible they are to a severe course of the infection. The doctors want to include data from around 6000 healthy and chronically ill children and adolescents with and without Covid 19 symptoms.
At the same time, research should be carried out into “how great is the risk of the spread of the novel coronavirus by asymptomatic children and whether chronically ill children are at greater risk for a severe course of Covid-19 infection than healthy children,” said the director of the clinic and polyclinic for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine of the UKE, Ania C. Muntau.
Muntau said that she was astonished by the public opinion, often with great certainty, that children do not develop Covid-19, or that they do not develop it seriously, "because we simply have no evidence". So far, it has not been thoroughly investigated. "In this respect, it is an absolutely open question whether children and how often and how seriously they fall ill."
Children were also only tested very restrictively. "And we may have a very high number of unreported cases there and a very high percentage of positive children without symptoms who play a very important role in what is happening in the population and the spread of the pandemic." In any case, for Hamburg, she could say: "We have not seen any seriously ill cases. And I think we would have noticed them."
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