"COVID-19 Can Spread Beyond Respiratory System to Brain and Heart, US Study Finds"

"Infects whole body cells from the early stage of infection"

Three-dimensional structure of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19. / Photo by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

[Asia Economy Reporter Na Ye-eun] A study has found that SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19, can spread within days to internal organs such as the heart and brain, beyond the respiratory system.

On the 26th (local time), Bloomberg reported that the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) released research analyzing organ tissues from 44 patients who died after being infected with COVID-19. Researchers used various tissue preservation techniques to detect and quantify virus levels. They also conducted autopsies within about a day after the patients' deaths and comprehensively collected postmortem tissues for investigation.

The study revealed that although COVID-19 enters the body through the respiratory tract, including the airways and lungs, it infects cells throughout the entire body, including the brain, from the early stages of infection. The blood-brain barrier (BBB), which protects the brain from pathogens or harmful substances, was unable to block COVID-19.

The research team pointed out that COVID-19 can infect cells inside the body beyond the respiratory system, which may be a potential cause of long-term aftereffects experienced by some patients following infection. However, these findings have not yet been peer-reviewed by other scientists.

Jiyad Al-Ali, Director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at the St. Louis Veterans Affairs Hospital, who has independently researched long-term COVID-19 aftereffects, said, "We have long questioned why COVID-19 seems to affect multiple organs."

He added, "This study may also help explain how COVID-19 causes cognitive impairments such as 'brain fog,' which makes the head feel cloudy and confused, and why long-term aftereffects can appear even in mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients."

Meanwhile, earlier research by a team at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, which conducted autopsies on 27 patients who died from COVID-19, found COVID-19 RNA not only in the lungs and airways known as infection routes but also in the heart, kidneys, liver, brain, and blood.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.