Dimitri Boulgakov can still remember how he suddenly thought of a will. At 46 years old, two small children – and a coronavirus infection. The disease is not over two months after the outbreak. He gets out of breath when climbing stairs or playing soccer with his sons. It is therefore not an isolated case.
Is it lung damage that still heals or does it stay? This is the crucial question for Torsten Blum, senior physician in the Berlin lung clinic Heckeshorn. At the end of June and beginning of July, doctors looked after numerous patients with persistent shortness of breath in the outpatient clinic. The common denominator: survived Covid-19 diseases that were not difficult.
“Genesen” is in many German corona statistics. But does that mean fit again? The German Society for Pneumology and Respiratory Medicine (DGP) has doubts about this. Images from the computer tomograph showed that many patients had lung damage, it is said.
“It is suspected that there may be late effects,” says Blum. It is not just about Covid patients who have been on ventilators for a long time. “We know that there can be scars in the area of the lungs.” The lighter cases are of particular concern. People who didn’t have to go to the hospital. “This new corona virus may also trigger long-term or even permanent consequential damage in the lungs,” says Blum. Specifically, this means: shortness of breath – especially during exertion.
“A corona infection is not as harmless as it is often presented now,” says patient Boulgakov. The virus made him sick, although risk factors such as previous illnesses, overweight and old age are not applicable. Boulgakov is in his mid-40s and well trained. He used to dance at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and later for the Berlin State Ballet. He has worked as a bus driver since the end of his ballet career. He never smoked.
Boulgakov is tough. He didn’t report sick for three years, he says proudly. But at the end of April he suddenly felt weak and got a high fever. On the advice of doctors, he did a corona test on May 4: positive. He felt left alone by the authorities. When is Corona so dangerous that you have to call the ambulance? “The worst were the nights,” he recalls. Pain, nightmares, fears for the future: the sons only five and six years old, the loan for the apartment, his wife freelancer. Boulgakov didn’t call an ambulance. The fever dropped, but he felt extremely limp for weeks.
More than two months later, medical doctor Blum sees many healthy sections in a computer tomography of Boulgakov’s lungs, but also pathological changes in the tissue. Doctors call these white sprinkles frosted glass patterns, they are inflammatory areas. This could later become scars. It is too early for a forecast, the doctor summarizes. The next appointment is in three months. Boulgakov reports that he is much better. “But it’s not like it used to be.”
In addition to the lungs, the novel virus can also damage the heart muscle, intestine, kidney, vascular membranes and the nervous system. Patients in Germany who did not initially appear to be seriously ill suffered heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary embolism or leg vein thrombosis, reports Clemens Wendtner, chief physician at the Clinic for Infectious Diseases at Munich Clinic Schwabing. The number of those affected is low. It is significantly less than ten percent of the patients in the clinic – and thus slightly less than one percent of all registered infected people.
Wendtner also judges that there is a risk that there will be long-term consequences. »Some of the patients will develop problems in the long term. I think that we can also generate new clinical pictures secondary to Covid-19. «Ultimately, the coronavirus can affect every cell in the body, adds Christoph Spinner from the Munich University of Technology. dpa / nd
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