Rise in post-Covid stroke & heart attack cases: Docs

Rise in post-Covid stroke & heart attack cases: Docs

Sumitra.DebRoy@timesgroup.com

Mumbai:31.05.2021 

A mild bout of Covid-19 took a drastic turn for a 36-year-old Kamothe resident who suffered from a brain stroke and is now battling paralysis. Chandrashekar Reddy, father of two and the family’s main breadwinner, is barely able to sit up now after over a month. Doctors say a complete recovery could take more than six months, a second brain surgery and intensive physiotherapy.

Reddy’s case, however, is not rare. Doctors have increasingly been seeing cases of stroke and heart attacks in patients who are recuperating or have recovered from Covid. In the second wave, doctors are particularly seeing a delayed presentation of these complications — sometimes up to 2 months after the patient has been discharged from hospital. Worryingly, neurologists say the high incidence of stroke is also seen in patients battling mucormycosis, the invasive fungal disease.

The state Covid taskforce has also asked doctors to focus on post-Covid cerebrovascular complications.

Dr Viswanathan Iyer, a brain and spine surgeon who operated on Reddy, said it was his fourth such surgery since the end of April. In Reddy’s case, he had to perform a decompression surgery since there was a large clot on the right side of the brain. The surgery is done to remove the bone and give space to accommodate brain swelling. “The systemic inflammation sends the body in some kind of hypercoagulable state, where the blood thickens, making the patient prone to suffer from a stroke,” he said.

At KEM Hospital, neurologist Dr Nitin Dange said they have seen over 20 cases of strokes, heart attacks and aggravation of deep vein thrombosis in patients who have recovered from Covid.

In the second wave, doctors are seeing a delayed presentation of complications — sometimes up to 2 months after the patient has been discharged from hospital