The goal of Pretorius and her collaborators is to help design a better test that physicians can use to identify those with high levels of microclots. Is COVID-19 A Disease Of The Blood Vessels? Shots - Health News Clots, Strokes And Rashes. But more importantly, your vasculature is compromised." "It means that oxygen transfer cannot happen as it should, between your blood and your organ systems because the vehicle, the blood, is damaged these clots in there. It's in every part of your body," Pretorius says.
If it's systemic, it means it's in every organ. inflammation of your blood vessels-the inside of your blood vessels. "You get widespread and systemic-induced. But for others, those microclots hang around and they can damage blood vessels as well as block blood flow to many organs - which could help explain Long COVID's wide-ranging symptoms. In some people, after around two weeks, the body will begin to break down those insoluble microclots and they will return to normal. "So when you have acute COVID you will have activated platelets, you will have vascular damage in endothelial damage and you will have a micro cloud presence in some individuals." "The spike protein has the capability to change your soluble clotting protein to insoluble little microclots and that's where everything starts," Pretorius says. After spending years studying blood clotting patterns in other diseases, like diabetes, lupus and arthritis, she was seeing hints of similar, blood-related symptoms in COVID patients.įluorescent image of a microclot from a Long COVID patient shown at 40x magnification. Resia Pretorius, a professor of physiological sciences at Stellenbosch University in South Africa was seeing something else. From lungs to bloodĮarly in the pandemic, most thought of COVID-19 as a respiratory disease.
But three years after the first people with persistent symptoms were documented, there is no biomarker for the disease - no test or swab that can diagnose someone with Long COVID.Ī group of researchers is looking to change that. and across the globe - are still dealing with the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic in the form of Long COVID.Įstimates show that more than 65 million worldwide have the condition, which encompasses a wide range of symptoms that are worsened or appear after initial SARS-CoV-2 infection. The federal COVID-19 public health emergency ended last week, but millions in the U.S. Listen to Short Wave on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. As part of studying Long COVID, graduate researcher Bradley Wade Hamilton separates out microclots from blood platelets in a solution.
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