New York, USA (CU)_ According to Avindra Nath, an Indian-American neuroimmunologist, long Covid is having a severe effect on human brains and nervous systems, and there is an immediate need for deeper study into discovering the entire range of its consequences and underlying reasons. Nath, who graduated from the Christian Medical College in Ludhiana before shifting to the US, said, “It is crucial to the development of diagnostic and therapeutic tools to identify and treat what is becoming an ever-increasing public health concern”.
In a new opinion piece published in the top Science journal, Nath, clinical director of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and Serena Spudich of Yale School of Medicine in Connecticut, stated that the medical industry should deeply examine patients with long Covid classified according to their specific symptoms.
Acute Covid-19 has been associated with neurological symptoms including loss of taste and smell, migraine, stroke, psychosis, and brain inflammation. They discussed the neurological effects and wrote, “There does not seem to be extensive infection of brain cells by the virus, but the neurological effects may be caused by immune activation, neuro-inflammation and damage to brain blood vessels”.
Long Covid may manifest itself in a multitude of ways in the brain and neurological system, including loss of taste and smell, decreased attention, exhaustion, pain, sleep difficulties, autonomic dysfunction, and headache as well as psychological consequences such as depression or psychosis. Nath and Spudich have summarized current scientific understanding of the body’s probable reactions to acute Covid-19 infection and how those responses may manifest as long Covid symptoms.
Additionally, they noted similarities between the symptoms reported by those with Long Covid and those with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) or post-Lyme illness, indicating that there may be common risk factors. The experts have emphasized the immediate need for worldwide research initiatives due to the wide variation in symptoms between individuals and the fact that many people with Long Covid were previously healthy prior to contracting a relatively minor Covid-19 infection.
