How COVID-19 Affects the Lungs | COVID-19 | COVID-19 is a disease

 How COVID-19 Affects the Lungs

COVID-19

COVID-19 is a disease

When you breathe, air flows in through your mouth and nose and down your airways.

Inside your lungs, the airways end in clusters of air-filled sacs.

These air sacs are surrounded by tiny blood vessels.

Here, oxygen from your lungs passes into your bloodstream to get to tissues throughout your body.

Carbon dioxide is breathed out.

COVID-19 is a disease, caused by a virus called SARS-CoV-2.

The virus infects cells along your airways by attaching to ACE2 and other molecules on those cells.

The virus uses ACE2 as a door to get inside of the cells and make more copies of itself.

The virus and your immune system's reaction to it, inflammation, damages the air sacs, causing them to scar and stiffen or fill with fluid.

This blocks some oxygen from passing from your lungs into your bloodstream.

As blood oxygen levels fall, you may feel short of breath.

In severe cases, a ventilator or other support may be needed.

Inflammation helps our bodies fight infection, but in some people with COVID-19, it seems to go into overdrive.

Researchers think this may be due to the fact that the virus latches on to the ACE2 molecule in order to get into cells.

ACE2 helps reduce inflammation, and this effect is lost when the virus occupies it.

The result is that inflammation can go awry.

NHLBI-funded research over decades has helped us understand ACE2, its role in inflammation and how it is hijacked by the virus.

NHLBI is also supporting new studies, including clinical trials, focused on developing safe and effective treatments for people infected with SARS-CoV-2.

People with chronic lung, heart or blood diseases may be at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19.

We should all take steps to help protect ourselves and others from infection by washing hands often, avoiding crowded places, wearing a mask and staying at least 6 feet away from other people.

COVID-19

 

 

DR ABDUL WARIS PT