02/09/2020
COVID-19 aka corona virus related info
Hey guys! I just wanted to share some information about the symptoms of covid and some of the possible treatment for covid virus which I have learned so far. If you know any article or knowledge about the topic please feel free to send the info or comment below.
Symptoms of covid 19
Sudden rise of Fever or chills
Cough
Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
Fatigue
Muscle or body aches
Headache
New loss of taste or smell
Sore throat
Congestion or runny nose
Nausea or vomiting
Diarrhea
problem Breathing / Shortness of breathing.
Pain or pressure in chest
Bluish lips or face
Inability to wake or stay awake.
-CT scans of Covid patients.
The Ct scans of the covid patients detect ground glass which is a white patchy spot in the lungs, bilateral lesions, clumps of inflamed tissue, and pneumonia can be seen in peripheral and subpleural areas of the lungs.
The diameter of SARS-CoV-2 is about 60–140 nm, and the size of the alveolar pores is about 10–15 μm, after the virus is inhaled through the respiratory tract, covid invades the bronchioles, mainly involving the interstitium around bronchioles at the end of lobular bronchioles, causing bronchiolitis and peribronchitis, and spreads to the distal end. Therefore, the lesion originates from a round-like nodule in the core of the secondary lung lobule, which were usually shown as round ground-glass opacity at first, and then extends to the whole secondary pulmonary lobules, forming lobular patchy.
-How covid-19 causes pneumonia?
In normal humans when we breathe in oxygen it travels through the windpipe to bronchi and eventually to tiny air sacs known as alveoli which are responsible for gas exchange. In alveoli, the oxygen diffuses into the capillaries (blood) and the carbon dioxide diffuses out from the capillaries to the alveoli and CO2 travels to the windpipe and gets exhaled out of the body. There is a small passage between alveoli and capillaries. During gas exchange in alveoli, the immune cells kill and destroy any virus or pathogens which they encounter during gas exchange. But the patient with COVID the problem arries during gas exchange. During gas exchange, the immune cells get overwhelmed with COVID-19 virus, it calls for help and the inflammation occurs. During inflammation the capillaries become leaky and the blood from the capillaries diffuses into the alveoli which blocks the air passage and exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in alveoli. Breathing problems, and chest pain are the symptoms of it.
-Difference between pneumonia and pneumonia caused by covid
The main difference is in pneumonia, there is inflammation in only one side of the lungs, pulmonary embolism ( blocked air flow in the lungs) but in covid there is inflammation in the multiple places in the lung and it is very wide spread.
COVID- 19 can lead to liver abnormalities;- Recent studies have shown that COVID-19 have had increased levels of liver enzymes such as alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) which indicate their livers are at least temporarily damaged. The mechanism which leads to increase in liver enzymes is still unknown.
-Treatment of COVID-19
Self-isolation and quarantine:- If you are diagnosed with COVID-19, isolate yourself from others. Self-isolation can be mentally challenging and you have to be cautious of your mental health. Consume healthy foods and don’t take stress. Let your adaptive immune cells do its jobs.
How self isolation can treat COVID-19?
When a healthy human body encounters a new virus or a pathogen such as covid-19, the innate immune cells such as dendritic cells and macrophages detect the virus’s antigen and start killing them. Dendritic cells also present the COVID virus antigen to naive B cells and T cells, also known as adaptive immune cells. The naive B cells which can recognize and bind on to the virus’ antigen starts to proliferate ( making multiple copies). The B cells which are now educated can now bind onto the virus antigen and also produce antibodies which can neutralize the virus and eventually kill the virus. All these mechanisms take time. Inorder for adaptive immune cells to be educated and produce antibodies take about 1 to 3 weeks after infection.
The fever, swelling and pains are all the signs of inflammation which occurs when the innate immune cells such as macrophage are killing the virus or the adaptive immune cells are neutralizing or killing the virus.
Question:- How can the patient who has been cured from COVID can be immune from the disease in the future?
When the person’s adaptive immune cells are able to neutralize and kill the virus the first time when he/she is infected with COVID, those educated B cells and antibodies remain in the thymus as a memory or as a police. When the person gets infected with covid the second time, the antibodies and educated immune cells neutralize and kill the virus quickly.
Other treatment includes Remdesivir:-
Recently FDA have approved Remdesivir an antiviral drug as a treatment for severe COVID-19 cases. The research article posted in New England journal of medicine indicated that Remdesivir have shown positive effects in covid patients. Normally, the patient with an oxygen mask got better in 15 days but with the Remdesivir, people got better in 11 days. The mortality of the drug is out of 100 people, 4 more people got better with the treatment of the drug than without the drug. Is the treatment promising? Not really.
Antibodies therapy:- Recently Researchers is trying to use antibodies therapy as a way to treat covid patients. How does it work? Like I discussed earlier, antibodies can bind onto virus surface receptors and neutralize the virus so that the covid virus can no longer bind onto the cell surface and infect the cell. During antibody therapy, the researchers draw the blood from the people who have been recovered from the covid and purify the antibodies from their blood. The purified antibodies are then injected into the covid patient in a hope that those antibodies can bind onto the virus antigen ( surface receptors) and neutralize the virus.
