MEDICAL SCIENCES
IMPLICATIONS OF COVID-19 ON HEART HEALTH
Profoundly straining national healthcare systems and the global economic stability, since December 2019, the Wuhan Virus exhibited diverse patterns of after-effects, especially on the cardiovascular health of an individual, thus leaving a blind spot in understanding the impacts of the disease and a huge field for research unexplored. Audditiya Bandopadhyay and Gyaneshwer Chaubey Cytogenetics Laboratory, Department of Zoology, Banaras Hindu University
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he past two decades witnessed two recorded epidemics, caused by the family of seven known coronaviruses - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV), in 2002 - 2003, and the Middle East Respiratory Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in 2012, before the third and also the most recent one
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A SI A N H O S P I T A L & H EA LT HCA R E M A N AGE M E N T
started to emerge lately. It eventually turned gigantic, spreading rapidly to several countries globally, inflicting a massive jerk to health, economy, and lifestyle. The previously known virus family, comprising of HCoV- 229E, HCoV-NL63, HCoV-OC43, and HCoV-HKU1, has long been associated with respiratory distress syndromes
IS S UE - 55, 2022
and flu-like outbreaks, with minimum Cardiac involvement. However, with the ascent in the number of COVID19 confirmed cases, the recent literature survey documented accumulating data for cardiovascular complications, occurring in about 10-20 per cent of the hospitalised COVID-19 patients. Apart from the high occurrence of cases of bronchitis and severe pneumonia, a heart attack or congestive heart failure was prevalent during the pandemic, particularly among the patients suffering from pre-existing heart ailments. Reports also widely stated COVID-19 triggered myocarditis, along with systemic inflammation, necrosis of its cells, mimicking heart attacks, arrhythmias, and acute or protracted heart failure (muscle dysfunction), as a characteristic of the
