US doctors have revealed on Wednesday, April 22 that the COVID-19 is causing strokes in adults who are in their 30s and 40s. They said that the novel Coronavirus patients may be unwilling to call emergency service, 911 because they have heard that the hospitals are currently overwhelmed by Coronavirus cases.
Doctors have also said that they are finding blood clots in the lungs, heart and kidney of COVID-19 patients, some of whom are critically ill while others seem relatively in stable condition. As per the health experts, the new fact about blood clot would have caused the stroke in some people.
COVID-19 is causing sudden strokes
As reported by CNN, Dr Thomas Oxley, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Health System in New York and his colleagues have shared details of five Coronavirus patients, all were under the age of 50, who showed symptoms of COVID-19 infection or no symptoms at all.
Oxley said that the novel Coronavirus seems to be causing increased clotting in the large arteries, triggering a severe stroke. The medical report showed a seven-fold increase in the incidence of a sudden stroke in young people during the past two weeks. In addition, he said, "Most of these patients have no past medical history and were at home with either mild symptoms (or in two cases, no symptoms) of COVID. Two of them delayed calling an ambulance."
In a letter which will be published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the team of doctors wrote, "For comparison, our service, over the previous 12 months, has treated on average 0.73 patients every two weeks under the age of 50 years with large vessel stroke."
Coronavirus: The stroke and blood clot
While the novel Coronavirus infected more than two million people all around the world, there are several facts about the disease which are strange and unexpected by medical fraternity. Kidney issues and heart problems related to the COVID 19 have more recently risen to the surface as doctors struggle to better understand how they can treat the Coronavirus patients.
In one case, a COVID-19 patient, Reagan who works for a biomedical company in New York was diagnosed with novel Coronavirus in March and had been recovering at home for weeks. His symptoms included breathing issues, high fever and coughing up blood. He was advised to take azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine as a participant of a clinical trial. Later when he went to hospital doctors told him that the virus has spread into both of his lungs and they found dozens of little blood clots throughout the organ.
As per the doctors, it is not common to have a stroke at the age of below 50. Recently, Oxley said that the average person who has a large vessel stroke is critically impaired which means it is "a bigger clot. It includes one of the largest arteries in the brain. The most effective treatment for large vessel stroke is clot retrieval, but this must be performed within 6 hours, and sometimes within 24 hours."
While as of now people are only asked to call for an ambulance if they start showing symptoms like shortness in breathing or high fever, the team of doctors said that considering the new findings of the Coronavirus effect on the human body, they wanted to tell people to watch themselves for symptoms of Coronavirus infection and to call 911 if they have any evidence of stroke too.
