Coronavirus can cause acute strokes in young adults, a study reveals!

Updated On March 18, 2024 | Published By: shahid | In Health

The mystery of coronavirus continues to unveil albeit slowly.
A new study has now shown that it can cause strokes in young adults in their 30s and 40s.
This is possible even if the adults are not very ill-appearing.

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Young adults and strokes in coronavirus infection

The new deadly coronavirus which originated from Wuhan has caused a lot of destruction worldwide. Doctors have not yet been able to completely understand the complex virus. It has baffled and overwhelmed them.

New symptoms are being seen increasingly in certain age groups and certain races. The death rates due to the virus also vary widely between the countries probably due to the differences in testing and the health care infrastructure.

A new study now showed that young adults are more likely to get strokes due to the virus than older adults and children.

The coronavirus causes blood to clot in them and results in diminished blood flow to the particular part of the brain and hence a stroke.

Additionally, if the clot takes place in a limb, gangrene results. This happened with Nick Cordero whose leg had to be amputated for it. The blood thinners also failed to work on him.

Details of a case series

Dr. Thomas Oxley, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Health System in New York has been seeing patients with strokes due to coronavirus infection.

He said that five young adults below the age of 50 presented to him with a stroke. And they all had either mild symptoms of Covid-19 or were positive for it with no symptoms.

Dr. Thomas told CNN:

“The virus seems to be causing increased clotting in the large arteries, leading to severe stroke,”

He elaborated:

“Our report shows a seven-fold increase in incidence of sudden stroke in young patients during the past two weeks. Most of these patients have no past medical history and were at home with either mild symptoms (or in two cases, no symptoms) of Covid,”
“All tested positive. Two of them delayed calling an ambulance.”

Patients avoid calling emergency 911 for an ambulance since they are aware that the hospitals too are more than full of coronavirus cases.

More light on the coronavirus cases

A significant number of doctors have told CNN that patients deliberately delay calling 911. They do know that hospitals too are unable to cope with the increased load of cases.

Young adults rarely get strokes otherwise. Even if does happen, usually only the small arteries, are affected. But with coronavirus, major blood vessels seem to bear the brunt of the infection.

The doctors wrote in an urgent letter sent to the New England Journal of Medicine:

“For comparison, our service, over the previous 12 months, has treated on average 0.73 patients every 2 weeks under the age of 50 years with large vessel stroke,”

Out of the five cases, one patient died. The other four are in the ICU. One is discharged home but continues to require monitoring. Dr. Thomas added:

“Up until now, people have been advised to only call for an ambulance with shortness of breath or high fever,”

He now wants people with early symptoms of stroke to also call 911 because early treatment implies a better prognosis for them.

Source: CNN

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