Three years after COVID-19 first appeared, over 750 million people in the world have been infected with the coronavirus disease.
Recent research has shown that some of these people are more likely to experience cardiovascular issues, such as an irregular heartbeat, stroke and heart failure.
You can check if your heart is damaged by blood tests have shown that during COVID-19, some people have elevated levels of a substance called troponin in their blood, along with EKG changes and chest pain.”
Elevated troponin levels are a sign of damaged heart tissue. Sometimes this is from a heart attack. This is less commonly seen after COVID-19.
Studies are spotting potential heart and brain problems up to a year after infection with SARS-CoV-2, even in people who had mild COVID-19.
The possible long-term effects include “a myriad of symptoms affecting different organs,” said Dr. José Biller, director of the COVID-19 neurology clinic at Loyola Medicine in Maywood, Illinois. “So, it could be the lungs, it could be cardiovascular, it could be the nervous system, it could be mental health or behavioral problems.”
Estimates vary widely on how many people may be affected.
Research suggests about 10% to 20% of people experience mid- or long-term issues from COVID-19, according to the World Health Organization.
That may sound small, but COVID has affected hundreds of millions of people, said Dr. Siddharth Singh, director of the post-COVID-19 cardiology clinic at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
In the U.S. alone, about 80 million people have been infected with the coronavirus since the pandemic started in early 2020.
Note: Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
WHO’s International Health Regulations Emergency Committee discussed the pandemic on Thursday at its 15th meeting on Covid-19, and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus concurred that the public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC, declaration should end.
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