COVID-19 and cardiovascular disease

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a spectrum of disease spanning from a barely symptomatic infection to critical illness, is caused by the new coronavirus - severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Although lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome have been at a centre stage as the most dreadful complications of COVID-19, the heart damage has recently emerged as yet another grim outcome in the virus’s repertoire of possible complications. The cardiac involvement occurs as a direct invasion of cardiomyocytes by the virus via the angiotensin‐converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors and also indirectly by the inflammatory reaction due to cytokine storm. COVID-19 increases the severity of an already pre-existing heart disease and also unmasks the cardiac symptoms in a previously undiagnosed heart disease as well. Apart from this the drugs that are repurposed and are supposed to have a preventive or a therapeutic potential are also supposedly causing cardiac side effects. In the absence of substantial database all these seem to be a hypothetical correlation and one needs to rely on clinical skills and acumen.

Keywords

• covid-19
• sars-cov-2
• cardiovascular disease
• acute respiratory distress syndrome