In three months, the list of symptoms attributable to Covid-19 has grown considerably.
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From head to toes, including lungs and even the kidneys: every week, the list of symptoms caused by Covid-19 gets longer and few organs seem to be spared from this disease, whose forms vary from mild to severe .
In the space of three months, what started out as a classic flu has turned into a catalog of syndromes which, in their most severe forms, can trigger these now famous cytokine storms, a runaway of the immune reaction which can lead to death.
It is not uncommon for a virus to cause so many manifestations, but some Covid-19 symptoms, such as loss of smell or blood clots, appear to be specific to this epidemic.
“Most viruses can damage tissue where it reproduces or cause collateral damage to the immune system that fights infection”says Jeremy Rossman, virology expert at the British University of Kent.
Life-threatening symptoms
Doctors suspect Covid-19 is responsible for the hospitalization of dozens of children in New York, London and Paris with rare multi-systemic inflammatory conditions, suggesting an atypical form of Kawasaki disease or syndrome toxic shock, “Which attacks the walls of the arteries and can cause organ failure”.
Dozens of medical studies have described other potentially lethal consequences of the disease, including “Strokes and heart attacks”.
Long-term consequences
Nanjing Medical University of China researchers reported patient cases “Having developed urinary complications and acute renal damage”.
They observed “Upheavals in the male sex hormones, advising the young men eager to have children to consult once cured”.
Is this spectrum of symptoms unique? Not necessarily. “In a common disease, complications, even rare, will occur frequently”, decrypts Babak Javid, specialist in infectious diseases at the Cambridge University Hospital Center.
Over 4 million cases have been reported worldwide, but “The real number of infections could reach tens, even hundreds of millions”, according to Mr. Javid.
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