A US research team has now found in a study that the virus in corona patients still migrates to many places in the body even following the infection.
A particularly high concentration of COVID-19 was sometimes found in the heart and brain. There the virus even infected individual heart muscle and nerve cells.
The results of the study might also provide an explanation for possible long-term consequences of corona patients.
Once infected with COVID-19, the viruses apparently often migrate via the blood to numerous regions of the body. US researchers have now been able to find the coronavirus in patients following an infection in 85 different places in the body alone. The highest concentrations were sometimes in the heart and in the brain, the results of the Preliminary study in the science magazine Nature from December 2021.
44 patients who had died of or with COVID-19 were examined for the study. During the autopsies, the researchers made sure that the viral RNA, i.e. the genetic material, had not yet decomposed in the body so that it might be detected. In all 44 deceased corona patients, the genes of COVID-19 might not only be detected in the lungs, but also in at least 79 and a maximum of 85 locations in the body, including in asymptomatic patients.
The US research team from the Clinical Center of the US National Institutes of Health in Maryland found not only the locations but also indications that the virus continues to multiply for up to 230 days following the COVID-19 infection. According to the results, however, the virus concentration decreased in the course of the infection and only rarely led to inflammation or changes in body tissue.
Possible consequences of the corona infection might be with the virus
The research results from the USA are particularly interesting because some corona patients complain of persistent symptoms weeks or months following the infection (long COVID), but these are difficult to explain with diagnoses. It was suspected that the virus would continue to multiply and damage the body even following infection. So far, however, this has not been proven.
With their investigations, the US research team has now provided initial explanations for the consequences of corona infections: The number of viruses per nanogram was indeed highest in the respiratory organs (9,210), but also in the cardiovascular organs (38.75 ), the lymph nodes (30.01), in the gastrointestinal tract (24.68), in the kidneys and endocrine glands (12.76), in the reproductive organs (0.36), in muscle, fat and skin tissue including peripheral nerves (27.50), in the eyes (57.40) and last but not least in the brain (32.93). In some patients, several variants of SARS-CoV-2 were even found, which differed by individual mutations. The viruses had apparently continued to multiply even with errors.
In addition, the virus genes might even be detected within individual cells. Heart muscle cells and vessel walls were infected in the heart, for example, and nerve cells in the brain.