In the space of three months, what started as a classic flu has turned into a catalog of syndromes which in their most severe forms can trigger these now famous “cytokine storms”, a runaway of the immune reaction which can cause death.
It is not uncommon for a virus to cause so many manifestations, but certain symptoms of SARS-CoV-2, such as loss of smell or blood clots, seem very specific to this epidemic.
Doctors suspect Covid-19 is responsible for the hospitalization of dozens of children in New York, London and Paris with rare “multi-systemic” inflammatory conditions, suggesting an atypical form of Kawasaki disease or a Toxic shock syndrome, which attacks the walls of the arteries and can cause organ failure.
Dozens of medical studies have described other potentially lethal consequences of the disease, including stroke and heart damage. Researchers at Nanjing University of Medicine (China) have reported cases of patients who developed urinary complications and acute kidney damage. They observed upheavals in the male sex hormones, advising the young men eager to have children to consult when cured.
“Beware of just about everything”
” We were told at the start: fever, headache, small cough. We were added: runny nose, itchy throat. Then there were the digestive symptoms: diarrhea, stomach ache “Recalls Sylvie Monnoye, family doctor in Paris. Then pain in the rib cage, loss of taste and smell, skin connections like hives or frostbite on the toes, neurological disorders … ” We started to think that we should be wary of just about everything “Comments Dr. Monnoye.
These testimonies are supported by an internal report from the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) in the United States, which analyzed the symptoms on 2,591 patients hospitalized between March 1 and May 1.
Three-quarters of patients had chills, fever and / or cough, and almost as much breathing difficulties, the most common symptoms of the new coronavirus. Almost a third complained of body aches, ditto for diarrhea; a quarter of the nausea or vomiting. Some 18% had headaches, 10 to 15% had lung or abdominal problems, runny nose, sore throat.
However, until the end of April, the CDC had only listed three symptoms: cough, fever and difficulty breathing. Her website has since been updated, but has only added a few: chills, body aches, headaches, loss of smell. French health authorities did the same in early May.
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