Arushi Bidhuri
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Written By: Arushi Bidhuri | Updated : September 3, 2021 12:02 PM IST
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, can have a long-lasting impact on a person's body. Most people suffering from the coronavirus can experience mild to manageable symptoms during the illness. However, people with an underlying illness can be at a higher risk. Ever since the pandemic began, scientists have been warning about the complications that may affect a person post-Covid as well.
Although Covid is believed to be a disease of the lungs, as more people became infected, scientists discovered that it could do more damage to your body than you would imagine. The complications may occur as this particular infection attacks the immune system and causes it to flood your bloodstream with inflammatory proteins called cytokines, which in turn can damage your organs like your kidney.
According to the latest study, Covid-19 had a substantial decrease in kidney function in Covid-19 long-haulers, even in individuals who had had minor viral infections. Researchers have discovered This category, dubbed "long-haulers" by others, includes those who have had both moderate and severe episodes. And anybody can be affected by this condition: young, elderly, healthy, chronically ill, hospitalised, and non-hospitalized.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis discovered that persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 have a higher risk of kidney damage, chronic kidney disease, and end-stage renal disease.
For the study, the researchers looked at data from 1,51,289 women, including 8,817 who had Covid-19, as well as people of all ages. The team developed a controlled dataset that contained health information from more than 1.7 million healthy and Covid-infected older individuals from March 1, 2020, to March 15, 2021.
Assistant Professor of Medicine at Washington University, Ziyad Al-Aly said, "Our findings emphasise the critical importance of paying attention to kidney function and disease in caring for patients who have had Covid-19. If kidney care isn't an integral part of the Covid-19 post-acute care strategy, then we will miss opportunities to help potentially hundreds of thousands of people who have no idea that their kidney function has declined due to this virus," Al-Aly added.
People with mild disease who did not require hospitalisation had a 15% increased risk of developing a major adverse kidney event like chronic kidney disease, a 30% increased risk of developing acute kidney injury, and a 215 per cent (more than two-fold) increased risk of developing end-stage kidney disease.
Patients hospitalised with Covid-19 had a seven-fold greater risk of a significant adverse renal event, an eight-fold increase in the risk of acute kidney damage, and a 13-fold increase in the risk of end-stage kidney disease in those, who were in the ICU for the virus.
(with inputs from agencies)
