How can antibodies help in a pandemic? 1:05
(CNN Spanish) - It is known that the coronavirus affects various organs and parts of the body, not just the lungs. Among them is the brain and the central nervous system.
Two studies, one Spanish and the other British, explain that a percentage of patients hospitalized with covid-19 presented cerebral ischemia, cerebral degeneration and compromise in their nerves. Dr. Elmer Huerta discusses the findings in this episode.
You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform, or read the transcript below.
Hello, I am Dr. Elmer Huerta and this is your daily dose of information about the new coronavirus, information that we hope will be useful to take care of your health and that of your family.
Today we will look at two recent studies that describe how the new coronavirus is capable of causing disease in the brain and nerves.
- READ: This is how the coronavirus affects the whole body
It is incredible what we are learning about the new coronavirus and covid-19, the disease it causes. At the time of writing this episode, an outbreak of a rare respiratory illness was first described 194 days ago in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
And it's important to mention the respiratory issue because for several weeks, what the world heard about the new disease was that it was a respiratory problem, and almost all the conversations were about respirators and intubations in the intensive care units.
There is no doubt that respiratory compromise of the disease is the most frequent complication, but -as it has been described in previous episodes- there is ample evidence that the virus can attack various systems of the organism, such as the heart, pancreas, intestines and kidneys, so it is currently considered a multisystemic disease.
Two studies - one Spanish and one British - are published in the June issue of the journal Brain, giving details of the disease causing the new coronavirus in the brain and nerves.
In the Spanish study, from the General University Hospital of Albacete, 23 cases of patients diagnosed with covid-19 who presented involvement of the central nervous system are described. The researchers mention that these 23 cases represent 1.4% of the 1,683 hospitalized during the observation time.
- READ: Coronavirus symptoms: 10 key indicators and what to do
Of the 23 cases, there were 17 with an ischemic stroke, that is, clot formation in the arteries of the brain. Five were from cerebral hemorrhage and one with a complication of brain degeneration. Unfortunately, the researchers say, 74% of the cases had an unfavorable evolution. 35% died.
For their part, the British researchers describe a group of 43 patients with covid-19 who also developed a severe compromise of the brain and nerves.
This group of patients is more complex and its members were classified, in turn, into five groups.
The first included ten patients with encephalopathies characterized by delusions and psychosis, which are defined as sudden changes in the functioning of the brain, causing mental confusion, disorientation, difficulty thinking, remembering, sleeping or paying attention. Of these, nine recovered only with symptomatic treatment.
Another group included 12 patients with various types of inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, who had varying degrees of recovery.
A third group included eight patients with strokes from clot formation in the arteries of the brain.
The fourth group brought together eight patients who developed inflammation of the nerves leaving the spinal cord, causing Guillain-Barre syndrome in seven of them.
The fifth was a miscellaneous group of patients with different types of brain and nerve involvement.
British researchers note that cases of brain involvement were unrelated to the severity of respiratory symptoms.
Without a doubt, every day we are learning more and more of the complications that this new coronavirus causes, and that means that our efforts to prevent it must be greater and greater.
Wearing a mask that covers the nose and mouth every time we leave the house, keeping a distance of at least two meters with other people, washing our hands and keeping our environments safe should be the norm of life until we have a medicine or vaccine effective.
Send me your questions on Twitter, we will try to answer them in our next episodes. You can find me at @Drhuerta.
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And for the most up-to-date information, you can always go to CNNEspanol.com. Thanks for your attention.
If you have any questions, you can send them to Dr. Elmer Huerta through Twitter. You can also go to CNNE.com/coronaviruspodcast for all the episodes of our podcast “Coronavirus: Reality vs. fiction".
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