NEW YORK (Dispatches) -- Scientists have found that SARS-CoV-2 causes systemic Covid-19 infection and can persist in the body for months. Systemic infection affects the entire body, rather than a single organ or body part.
The scientists from the U.S. National Institutes of Health performed extensive autopsies on a diverse population of 44 individuals who died from or with Covid-19 up to 230 days following initial symptom onset. The autopsies were performed to map and quantify SARS-CoV-2 distribution, replication, and cell-type specificity across the human body, including the brain. Autopsies of only fatal cases were conducted, and not of those with long Covid.
The study found that SARS-CoV-2 virus is widely distributed, even among patients who died with asymptomatic to mild Covid-19.
Also, the virus replicates in multiple pulmonary and extrapulmonary tissues at early stages of infection.
The scientists detected persistent SARS-CoV-2 RNA at multiple sites, including regions throughout the brain, for up to 230 days following the onset of symptoms.
SARS-CoV-2 was detected in all 44 cases, and across 79 of 85 anatomical locations, and body fluids sampled. The scientists detected the highest burden of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the respiratory tract of early cases.