The danger of the covid effect

Research on the COVID-19 outbreak continues to develop from all sides. This week, a report shows that there is a greater risk of effects and harm to people with heart disease if infected with COVID-19.

Reports published in medical bulletins American College of Cardiology (ACC) states that exposure to COVID-19 in people with heart disease causes complications and death.

With the publication of the study, experts remind those with heart disease to be much more vigilant about exposure to COVID-19. Heart disease sufferers are expected to take more stringent prevention measures for COVID-19 than people with healthy bodies.

Why is the effect of COVID-19 more dangerous for heart sufferers?

COVID-19, which has been epidemic since last January, has claimed many lives. It is recorded that the death toll from this infection has reached 3,000 people as of Monday (2/3). Until now more than 88 thousand people are infected spread across the continent. In Indonesia, there are two patients who have confirmed positive.

Based on the ACC report, 40 percent of COVID-19 patients hospitalized have cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease.

These statistics show that if people with heart disease are infected with COVID-19, they have a more dangerous risk effect. The virus can affect heart disease patients in several ways.

The report stated that the main target of COVID-19 is the lungs, but it has a very strong effect on the heart. Especially in the diseased heart, which works harder to get blood and distribute oxygen throughout the body.

A diseased heart already has problems pumping efficiently. This condition, of course, is burdensome to the body system as a whole.

Another problem is that a person with heart disease has a weak immune system. In those with chronic medical conditions, the immune system's response tends to be weak in fighting off the virus.

Launch Medical Express, adviser to the ACC bulletin, Orly Vardeny said the virus can also pose a special risk for people who have a buildup of fat or plaque in the blood vessels.

He said an attack from a virus like COVID-19 could attack these plaques. Making the potential for blockage of blood vessels bigger and disrupting blood flow to the heart. This certainly creates a big risk of a heart attack.

Vardeny emphasized that COVID-19 information continues to evolve and can change at any time. But experts are taking some lessons from the experience of previous coronavirus outbreaks, such as SARS and MERS.

Like COVID-19, the two viruses also cause major effects and problems for people with heart disease. SARS and MERS are also potentially more dangerous for heart sufferers because they cause problems such as inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis), heart attack (heart attack), and heart failure (heart failure).

COVID-19 Outbreak updates Country: IndonesiaData

1,024,298

Confirmed

831,330

Recovered

28,855

DeathDistribution Map

Having heart disease does not mean that you are easily infected with COVID-19

Vardeny said these statistics show that people with heart have a greater risk of effects when infected with COVID-19. However, it does not mean that people with heart have a greater chance of contracting it.

"This doesn't mean people with heart disease are more likely to catch coronavirus," Vardeny. "It just means that those people are more likely to have complications once they become infected," explained the medical school professor at University of Minnesota the.

The ACC Bulletin recommends that people with cardiovascular disease continue to monitor the development of information about COVID-19 and pay attention to their condition.

Some cases of COVID-19 are at greater risk

COVID-19 often causes only mild symptoms, in some cases there are no symptoms at all. But a minority of cases were very severe and 2.3 percent of them caused death.

Scientists are trying to understand why some patients get worse than others. It is also unclear why COVID-19 - like its cousins SARS and MERS - appears to be more deadly than other coronaviruses that periodically strike during the rainy season or winter, such as those that cause colds.

Cecile Viboud an epidemiologist at National Institute of Health's Fogarty International Center America says that as COVID-19 develops, those who are at risk of dying from the infection are also becoming increasingly visible.

Viboud said that among those infected, the elderly with heart disease or hypertension are at a higher risk.

These statistics include data from 72 thousand COVID-19 cases in China. Of those 72 cases, 80 percent were at least 60 years old, more than half were aged from 70.

In Italy, the first 12 victims were mostly in their 80s and none were under 60. Some of those who received the deadly effects of COVID-19 were heart sufferers or those with heart problems.

Only one percent of cases between 10-19 years of age with one case of death. Meanwhile, cases of COVID-19 infection affecting children under 10 reached less than one percent, without a single death case.

"We're still trying to look at some of the cases in those under the age of 20," said Viboud. "Is it because children are not susceptible to infection or because they have very few diseases?" said Viboud.

Scientists don't yet know what actually happens in the older age group. But based on research on other coronavirus cases, such as SARS and MERS, experts argue that whether or not someone is infected with COVID-19, is dependent on a person's immune system response.

Data on cases of death of COVID-19 patients with comorbidities

WHO and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) China records data on cases of death of patients infected with COVID-19 with comorbidities, as follows: