Will we finally be able to respond to the health problems of long Covid patients? American and British researchers have just published results which would make it possible to better diagnose and better manage these patients.
Three years after the appearance of the first cases, researchers are finally beginning to unravel the mysteries of long Covid. Géraldine Zamansky, journalist for the Health Magazine on France 5, deciphers for franceinfo the impressive results, published this week by British and American teams?
franceinfo: What results are we talking about? What concrete effects for these patients, some of whom still suffer from symptoms linked to long Covid?
Geraldine Zamansky: Yes, it is first of all a visualization of the after-effects of the passage of the virus on the brain, lungs and kidneys, thanks to very high precision MRIs. The patients concerned had been hospitalized because of Covid, five months earlier. Even Dr Betty Raman, who coordinated this follow-up at the University of Oxford, was surprised. First, good news for the heart, which seems capable of recovering well.
But not the brain?
Effectively. She explained to me that the brain had scars. Caused by some sort of micro-stroke. The images also show a slight reduction in the volume of areas responsible for memory, for example. Dr Raman finally described to me different damage to the lungs and kidneys. With a clear conclusion: the more the organs were objectively damaged, the more the physical and psychological health of the patients concerned was degraded.
But what caused this damage?
According to an almost simultaneous discovery by this team, this would be the formation of small blood clots. And they blocked the flow of blood into certain vessels of these organs. This is the hypothesis presented to me by Dr. Maxime Taquet, a colleague of Dr. Raman.
Because they found a link between excessive coagulation at the start of the disease, a “clot factory” and the occurrence of symptoms of long Covid, months later. Remember, I just told you about microstrokes in the brain. This fits well with the problems patients describe, such as “brain fog” that makes it difficult to concentrate.
And what’s more, an American team shows that these people might even still be fighting the virus?
This is one of the avenues presented to me by Sasha Tabachnikova, from Yale University. They found an excess of antibodies in the blood of these patients, intended to fight against the coronavirus. As if he was still there. In addition, it would have led to the awakening of the Epstein-Barr virus, a generally “dormant” virus that almost all of us have. These discoveries of course give ideas for treatment. And could make it possible to diagnose long Covid, with a simple blood test!
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