Intestine, kidney among several organs that can get infected by COVID-19: Study
Coronavirus
COVID-19 can infect intestines, kidneys and several otherorgans of the the body according to a recent study.
The findings might help explain some of the puzzling symptoms seen in coronavirus patients includingblood clots that causestrokes in younger peopleand thatclog dialysis machines,headaches and kidney failure.
As cases of coronavirus infection proliferate around the world and governments take extraordinary measures to limit the spread, there is still a lot of confusion about what exactly the virus does to people’s bodies.
According to a study publishedin Nature Medicine, Jie Zhou and colleagues at the University of Hong Konggrew intestinal organoids, lab dish versions of the organs, from both bats and people. They found the virus not only lived in these organoids, but replicated.
Separately, a team at University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany performed autopsies on 27 patients who died from Covid-19.
"SARS-CoV-2 wasdetected in the kidneys of the patients which explains the high rate of injury in the specific organ of the coronavirus patients,''they wrote in a letter published in theNew England Journal of Medicine.
Previous reports have suggested that the fatal coronavirus has an adverse impact on thelungs, throat, heart, liver andbrain of those who get infected by it.