Conspiracy theories about Covid-19 persist even after the pandemic has eased. A silent majority is vaccinated. Others continue to speak of a kind of flu. Loud Covid doubters warn dangerous, under-tested vaccines could be injected.
A first study now puts an end to the belief that Covid is more or less a utopia. In the most extensive autopsy tissue study ever, researchers have found traces of the Sars-CoV-2 virus throughout the human body, from the brain to the heart to the eyes.
The research, published in Nature, suggests that the virus can cause persistent infections in many parts of the body; Infections that can occur months after the initial illness and also explain Long Covid. According to the study, antiviral drugs should be developed to treat it.
viral load throughout the body
Three years after the emergence of the new virus, scientists are still trying to understand exactly how the virus interacts with the human body. It remains a mystery how Covid infects various organs outside the respiratory system. The American study published in December now aims to demonstrate that Sars-CoV-2 can cause a systemic infection in some patients and can persist in the body for a long time.
As part of this study conducted by American scientists, autopsies were performed on 44 patients who died of Covid-19. The study focused on taking tissue shortly after death from various body sites. By dissecting the brain and quickly freezing fresh tissue, the researchers were able to detect the virus in cell cultures outside the respiratory system, including the brain.
Pathogenic cells could be detected in 84 different places in the body, with the highest concentration in the airways and lung tissue. However, the virus has also been found in the brain, intestines, heart, kidneys, eyes, adrenal glands, and lymph nodes.
Body tissue threatened even after recovery from the disease
The tissue studied came from patients at various stages of infection, from the earliest stage – less than 14 days after the onset of symptoms – to nine months after the acute illness.
All autopsy cases were elderly, unvaccinated, and had multiple comorbidities. They were studied in the first year of the pandemic.
It is not clear whether new virus variants spread in a similar way among vaccinated, younger people. However, the study clearly shows that the virus can spread through tissues throughout the body, including the brain.