Five COVID patients have been admitted in Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram Hospital with a type of viral infection called Cytomegalovirus.
This is the first time that cases of Cytomegalovirus are being reported in COVID-19 immunocompetent patients in India, according to news agency IANS.
The patients reportedly came in with compains of rectal bleeding which was, upon further investigation, found to be a symptom of Cytomegalovirus.
The doctors also said that these cases were reported during the second wave in April.
One of these five patients lost their lives to heavy bleeding and other COVID related complications of the lungs.
What is Cytomegalovirus, and how is it linked to COVID-19?
What is Cytomegalovirus?
First, let's look at what Cytomegalovirus is, and what usually causes it.
According to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Cytomegalovirus or CVM is a viral infection that can occur in anyone but mainly in immunocompromised people like patients of AIDS, cancer, or kidney transplant recipients.
The virus is said to exist in and around most of us, but a healthy person's immunity is able to fight them off.
Some general symptoms of CVM include,
Fever
Sore throat
Fatigue
Muscle ache
It must also be noted that given it's a viral infection like COVID-19, CVM is also infectious and can be passed on through saliva, urine, breast milk, transplanted organs, blood transfusion and sexual contact.
How is it linked to COVID?
According to Doctors at Sir Ganga ram Hospital, Delhi, all of these patients were infected with COVID-19 and started experiencing abdominal pain and rectal bleeding around 20 to 30 days after testing positive.
They further added that the patients were otherwise immunocompetent. This means they were otherwise healthy and were eliciting normal immune responses.
Two of these patients are said to have experienced heavy bleeding and one patient was in critical condition, needing emergency surgery.
The use of steroids for treating moderate to severe COVID and the viral infection itself is known to suppress a patient's immune response making them vulnerable to other pathogens.
As a result, we have seen a rise in other infections including the fungal infection mucormycosis reported in many who recovered from severe COVID.
According to the doctors, timely diagnosis and antiviral therapy are the key to effectively treating the illness.
(Written with inputs from IANS.)
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