Source: An article in the Chronicle
In an article published by The Chronicle titled, Covid-19 after-effects: Life-long battle for recovered patients, a medical doctor Dr Khayelihle Dube said researchers have witnessed that those who recover complain of brain fog and they cannot think clearly as there may be some cell damage within the brain that causes difficulties in thinking.
A local medical doctor, Dr Brian Mbanje from Mpilo Central Hospital confirmed that Covid-19 causes hyper inflammation in patients and severe cases may result in a stroke.
“Covid-19 causes a hyper inflammation which means there is a severe response of a patient’s immune system to the virus. This is why Dexamethasone works because it is a steroid which suppresses the immune response of the individual to the virus,” said Dr Mbanje.
“Since this hyper inflammation occurs inside the body, there are certain signs and symptoms that health practitioners would have to look for when one succumbs. A postmortem can be conducted so that the exact cause of death can be detected.”
Dr Mbanje explained that the virus goes through the respiratory system into the lungs then into the circulatory system.
“So some studies thus far have shown that when this happens then clots are formed inside an individual and they can lodge inside the lungs which is called pulmonary embolism hence people just die suddenly,” he said.
“Some young patients suffer strokes because of these embolisms. When these clots form it means that blood is no longer moving to other parts of the body from that clot hence the organ becomes dead. So if it lodges in the brain then it means that the person strokes.”
Background: In Zimbabwe, such organisations as Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) have called for mass testing to ensure that – the virus is detected at an early stage.
ZADHR bemoaned that in some cases, Covid-19 is detected during the postmortem, as such the deceased may have infected other people already and contact tracing takes a while to conduct due to limited government resources.
