Africa-Press – Kenya. New research presented at the European Academy of Neurology Congress in Vienna has found an increased risk of several neurological disorders in patients positive with COVID-19.
The study found that these patients are at a higher risk of contracting Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and stroke compared to those uninfected.
This is according to a publication in ‘News Atlas’.
The lead author of the new study, Pardis Zarifkar of the Copenhagen University hospital pointed out that three years after the first Covid 19 case, the precise nature and evolution of its effects on neurological disorders remained uncharacterized.
“Previous studies have established an association with neurological syndromes, but until now it is unknown whether Covid-19 also influences the incidence of specific neurological diseases and whether it differs from other respiratory infections.”
The data was analyzed through electronic health records from almost half of Denmark’s total population, spanning 2020 and 2021.
Those who tested positive for the disease were found to be 3.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
Further, they were at a 2.6 times risk of getting Parkinson’s and 4.8 times more likely to experience bleeding in the brain.
They were also at 2.7 times risk more likely to develop ischemic stroke.
Zarifkar said the increased risk of these neurological conditions following Covid-19 mirrors previous findings in cases of influenza or bacterial pneumonia.
“However, due to the sheer prevalence of the recent infections, it is likely baseline rates of these neurodegenerative diseases will rise around the world over the coming years.”
“We found support for an increased risk of being diagnosed with neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular disorders in Covid-19 positive compared to Covid-negative patients, which must be confirmed or refuted by large registry studies in the near future,” Zarifkar added.
He also assured that apart from ischemic stroke, most neurological disorders do not appear to be more frequent after Covid-19 than after influenza or community-acquired bacterial pneumonia.
This new research adds to a number of other recent studies that have found brain inflammation to be a characteristic of some Covid-19 infections.
It is, however, not clear how the virus may be causing them, or whether the autoimmune response will cause long-term problems.
Weighing in on the new study, Sara Imarsio from Alzheimer’s Research UK said dementia-causing neurological diseases are caused by a number of factors, from genetic susceptibility to age and environment.
She pointed out that Covid-19 may be playing a minor role in a person’s total risk of developing these diseases.
She said it is too soon to know the long-term impact of the 2019 infection on certain brain diseases, as some can take decades to develop.
“Diseases like Alzheimer’s develop in the brain over many years and Covid-19 has only been present in Europe since early 2020.”
“It may be that people in the very early stages of Alzheimer’s are more susceptible to catching diseases like COVID-19. While the announcement of these findings is potentially concerning, we will need to see the results of this study in a peer-reviewed publication before we can draw any real conclusions from this research,” she said.
The recent research can be found in the journal, Frontiers in Neurology.
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