Persons who have recovered from COVID-19 are still prone to post-infection effects to the heart, brain, lungs and blood among other health complications.
Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony said that the effects may vary in different individuals depending on which organ of the body was affected the most.
He explained that because the way the virus is designed, it affects every single body organ.
“Now different persons would have different manifestations of the disease depending which organ for that person was most infected or affected. Some people, if the virus would have predominantly affected their brain, they continue even after being discharged from the hospital, to have hallucinations, sometimes they have what is called brain fog, meaning in the midst of a conversation, they kind of zoom out, they are not understanding what is going on around them,” Dr. Anthony explained.
He noted that some patients also experience heart problems, with symptoms that mimic myocardial infection or heart attack. This issue has been observed in patients that are younger.
“Some persons who are 30 years old are having signs and symptoms of heart disease so they get pain in their chest and so forth, so that we have to monitor as well, we have seen persons who prior to covid, were not diabetics and after covid they would have presented with symptoms of diabetes and again we are seeing people, not just with diabetes, but we are seeing people who would have other types of diseases relating to the endocrine system.”
Blood diseases have also been observed in post Covid-19 patients, but the most common post Covid-19 complication is its effects on the lungs. “Quite a number of patients would have damage to their lungs and therefore they will require physiotherapy to be able to help them to breathe properly, and some of them, the damage can be very challenging to repair and sometimes it is not reversible, so for a few of those patients they had to stay on oxygen and it prevents them from working and a whole host of other things,” Dr. Anthony noted.
The minister emphasised that the health system now monitors these patients and get a thorough history from the patient to know at what point they had COVID-19 and how to treat them.
“We have set up clinics at the various hospitals and these patients would normally come back there for their treatment, in many cases it’s not in a specific discipline but you require a team of professionals to be able to treat that person,” Dr Anthony said.
The Health Minister is urging persons to guard against getting infected by being vaccinated and to adhere to the national COVID-19 guidelines and health precautions.
