Chance coronavirus could infect your brain

As the global coronavirus crisis worsens, new research has suggested that the disease could infect your brain, causing respiratory failure.

Worrying new research has suggested that the deadly coronavirus could infect the brains of those who contract the virus.

The deadly disease has been identified as a respiratory virus. But, Dr Norman Swan told the ABC’s Coronacast podcast, certain symptoms may signal that it’s a “more complicated virus than we think”.

“We think of this as a respiratory virus, which indeed is what it is – you know the symptoms are cough, flu-like symptoms, feeling breathless, and a bit fatigued,” Dr Swan said.

“But you can also get headaches, and there is a suggestion that it might affect the nervous system as well.”

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He said that while coronavirus would not cause issues such as meningitis – inflammation of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord – the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in the early 2000s did infect the nervous system of some people who contracted the disease.

Doctor Swan said that if COVID-19 is like SARS, in severe cases it could infect the part of your brain which controls respiration and lead to respiratory failure.

“When people talk about respiratory failure, it’s the inability to transmit oxygen from your lungs into your blood, and it can also actually affect your breathing to the extent you stop breathing and you need to be ventilated,” Doctor Swan explained.

If this were to happen, the infection would need to be cleared not just from your blood stream but from your brain as well, and could mean a much longer recovery.

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New research has suggested that coronavirus could infect people’s brains. Picture: AFP Photo/National Institutes of Health/NIAID-RML/Handout

While Doctor Swan said this development would be a “really scary” possibility, it was resource-poor countries that would suffer the most if coronavirus does manage to infect people’s brains.

“In countries where they don’t have ECMO (life support for the heart and lungs), they don’t have intensive care with ventilation – you will succumb,” Doctor Swan said.

Doctor Swan’s warning comes as a group of Chinese scientists warn that the virus has mutated into a more aggressive strain. In a new study published in the National Science Review, researchers suggested that after COVID-19 crossed into humans, the original strain evolved into a second type and both of these are now circulating.

Another paper by Wuhan doctors published in the Journal of Forensic Medicine earlier this week said that autopsies of virus victims suggest the deadly illness is “like a combination of SARS and AIDS” that can cause “irreversible” lung damage even if the patient recovers.

SYMPTOMS TO LOOK OUT FOR

The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, tiredness and dry cough, according to the World Health Organisation, and can take up to 14 days to develop.

Some people may also experience aches and pains, nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat or diarrhoea.

Anyone who has been to China, Iran or South Korea, or in contact with a person infected with coronavirus, should immediately isolate themselves from other people.

And if they start to experience symptoms, they should phone their GP or local emergency department.

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ADVICE FROM AUTHORITIES

• Regularly and thoroughly clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water.

• Avoid close contact with anyone who has a fever or cough.

• Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth.

• Make sure you, and the people around you, follow good respiratory hygiene.

• Stay home if you feel unwell.

• If you develop a fever, cough and difficulty breathing, seek medical advice promptly.

• Stay informed on the latest developments about COVID-19.