Corona's Lasting Effect

Symptoms of the disease can persist even after a person tests negative, making continued precaution and care necessary to avoid risks of strokes, cardiac arrest or kidney damage

- Sonali Acharjee

The story of 41-year-old Laksh Jain’s father confirms one of our worst fears about Covid-19—that the effects of the viral infection can linger in afflicted patients even after blood tests show they have recovered. Jain’s father, who had a severe COVID infection, was admitted to a Mumbai hospital for treatment and was discharged after blood tests confirmed that he was no longer Covid positive. He returned home to a relieved family. Within five days, however, he had a stroke from which he could not recover. “We did not do an autopsy, but the surgeon said it was likely that blood clots had formed in his body during Covid and travelled to his brain,” says Jain.

Doctors now agree that Covid is more than just a pneumonia-like affliction, but they can only venture guesses on what the long-lasting effects of the infection are in those who have recovered. There has been no study in India so far on the long-term impact of COVID, but a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that on an average 60 days after reporting their first symptoms of the virus, 87.4 per cent of the patients still reported at least one symptom. With 753,049 COVID recoveries in India as on July 22, it is important to acknowledge that the disease may be more complicated than initially anticipated, so that precaution and care for survivors can continue. “It is a new disease and we don’t know what the long-term or permanent implications are. But we do know that it is a virus which impacts a person from head to toe—reports of strokes, paralysis, cardiac problems, lung, kidney and even minor brain damage are coming in from survivors,” says Dr Farah Ingale, director of internal medicine at Hiranandani Hospital, Vashi, Navi Mumbai.