Coronavirus can remain in the body for up to 230 days and affect various organs

A new study by scientists from the US National Institutes of Health has shown that SARS-CoV-2 causes systemic Covid-19 infection and can persist in the body for months. ABPLive.

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A systemic infection affects the entire body, not an individual organ or part of the body.

The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, was recently published online as a manuscript pending publication in the journal Nature. The study was conducted at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland.

Acute Covid-19 infection causes multiple organ dysfunction. When patients experience long-term symptoms, it is called the post-acute effects of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC) or long-term Covid.

Coronavirus can persist in human organs for several months after infection. Most worryingly, this is true even in mild and asymptomatic cases. Traces of Covid-19 continue to persist in the heart, lymph nodes, eyes, nerves and brain of people infected with one of the Covid variants, reports Indiatimes.

There is little information available about the effects of an infection outside the respiratory tract and how long it takes for the body to clear the virus. Scientists at the NIH conducted this study to find answers to these questions.

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SARS-CoV-2 can spread early in infection and infect cells throughout the body.
American scientists have found that although the effect of SARS-CoV-2 is strongest in the respiratory tract and lungs, the virus can spread in the early stages of infection and infect cells throughout the body, including the entire brain. The virus is able to multiply outside the respiratory tract and can spread to cardiovascular organs, lymphoid tissues, gastrointestinal tract, renal and endocrine glands, and reproductive tissues.

The authors call this study the most comprehensive analysis to date of SARS-CoV-2 cellular tropism (host tissues that support the growth of a particular pathogen), quantification and resistance in the body and brain.

The study says a delay in clearing the virus may be one of the reasons for persistent symptoms in long-term Covid sufferers.

The authors noted in the study that understanding the mechanisms by which SARS-CoV-2 persists and the cellular host's responses to virus resistance holds promise for improving the clinical management of long-term Covid.

American scientists conducted extensive autopsies on 44 people who died from Covid-19 within 230 days of the onset of the first symptoms. The autopsy was performed to map and quantify SARS-CoV-2 distribution, reproduction and cell-type specificity in humans, including the brain, the study said. Only fatal autopsies were performed, not prolonged Covid.

The study found the SARS-CoV-2 virus is widespread, even among patients who have died from asymptomatic or mild Covid-19.

In addition, the virus replicates in many lung and extrapulmonary tissues during the early stages of infection.

Scientists found persistent SARS-CoV-2 RNA in many locations, including areas throughout the brain, for up to 230 days after symptoms began.

SARS-CoV-2 was detected in all 44 cases and in 79 out of 85 anatomical regions, and samples of biological fluids were also taken. Scientists have found the highest content of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the respiratory tract in the early stages.

There have been very few cases of inflammation or direct cytopathology (structural changes in host cells caused by viral infection) outside the lungs, despite the widespread occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 in the body.

According to the authors, the persistence of the viral RNA and single guide RNA (sgRNA) may indicate infection with the defective virus, which has been described as persistent infection with the measles virus.

Early phase of viremia

The authors noted that their results support an early phase of viremia (viremia, a state of the body in which viruses enter the bloodstream and can spread throughout the body), which spreads the virus throughout the body after a lung infection. The viremia phase represents the spread of the virus into the blood from the initial site of infection.

One of the patients was a minor with no evidence of multisystem inflammatory syndrome, suggesting that infected children without severe Covid-19 may also experience systemic SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The study says SARS-CoV-2 was found in the brains of all six late cases, including a patient who died 230 days after infection.

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Of the 44 patients, SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in respiratory tissues of 43 patients, cardiovascular tissues in 35, lymphoid tissues in 38, gastrointestinal tissues in 32, renal and endocrine tissues in 28, reproductive tissues in 30, and brain tissue - 10, the study showed.
In fact, researchers found traces of Covid-19 in people's brains about 230 days after they had symptoms, suggesting that Long Covid could actually be very long lasting!

Their conclusion? This Covid-19 "causes a systemic infection and can persist in the body for several months."

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