Suara.com – Scientists warn that waves brain damage can occur after the Corona virus pandemic (Covid-19).
Evidence shows that Covid-19 can trigger various brain disorders and neurological conditions. Reported in the journal Brain, researchers from University College London (UCL) now describe more than 40 cases of people infected with Covid-19 who suffer from temporary brain dysfunction, confusion, stroke, nerve damage, or other serious brain effects.
Interestingly, some of these patients do not suffer severe respiratory symptoms, which means that neurological disorders are the first and foremost presentation of Covid-19.
“We must be vigilant and look at this complication in people who have had Covid-19. Will we see epidemics on a large scale of pandemic-related brain damage, which may be similar to the outbreak of encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s and 1930s after the influenza pandemic of the year 1918, that remains to be seen, “said Dr. Michael Zandi, senior author of the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, as quoted from IFL Science, Thursday (9/7/2020).
The more scientists study about Covid-19, the clearer that the infection is not to focus solely on direct respiratory disease.
Many case studies show that viruses, or perhaps more precisely the body’s response to viruses, can injure organs other than the lungs, including the heart, kidneys, intestines, liver, and brain, as this new study shows.
In the study, scientists detailed brain disorders found in 43 people aged between 16 and 85 who had confirmed or were suspected of being infected with Covid-19 while being treated at a hospital in London.
In this selected group, experts identified 12 cases of brain inflammation, 10 cases of temporary brain dysfunction with delirium, eight cases of stroke, eight others with nerve damage, and the rest with “other central abnormalities that do not fit into this category”.
Covid-19 virus was not detected in cerebrospinal cerebrospinal fluid from the patients tested. This shows the infection does not directly attack the brain to cause neurological disease, but may be the result of inflammation or other responses of the immune system.
As mentioned, scientists warn that the small but significant amount of brain disorders triggered by Covid-19, shows that the world can be faced with an “epidemic” of greater brain damage.
The influenza pandemic in 1918 itself was associated with an outbreak of a brain disease known as encephalitis lethargica. Although it is still too early to predict whether the Covid-19 pandemic will cause comparable waves of encephalitis lethargica or other brain disorders, researchers say it is not impossible.
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