The covid-19 virus that continues to mutate causes changes in how the virus attacks humans. Recent research on the Covid-19 Omicron subvariant BF.7 found that the pathogen could be changing from infecting respiratory systems to increasingly targeting the human brain.
Based on media reports in China, some researchers feel that future Covid-19 subvariants may continue to evolve until they invade the human brain.
This discovery seems to refute previous findings which state that the evolution and mutation of Covid-19 will not have a more dangerous impact than its predecessors.
These researchers found that the pathogen could change the way it attacks humans, from previously infecting the respiratory tract to slowly attacking the brain.
Furthermore, researchers from Australia and France stated that the BA.5 variant, which was the cause of the explosion of Covid-19 cases in China, had caused severe damage to mouse brains and human brain tissue cultures compared to previous variants.
Quoted from the report from South China Morning, researchers explained that this variant causes brain inflammation, weight loss, and death. In addition, BA.5 effectively infected human brain organoids significantly better than BA. 1
Remains of the coronavirus were found in the brains of patients who died 230 days after they started showing symptoms.
The researchers say their latest findings are the most comprehensive analysis to date of the cellular persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in the human body. The study involved 44 autopsies.
The researchers carefully detected and quantified the messenger RNA levels of SARS-CoV-2 in 85 locations and fluids. This genetic information indicates where the virus may have replicated during a person’s lifetime.
However, these findings received notes from other experts who stated that the limitation of the research was the model used, namely mice. Experts argue that the same thing could not apply to humans.
Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, the report said that the death of rats caused by brain infection by BA.5 was very different from infection experienced by humans.
He confirmed that the BA.5 variant did not cause greater brain tissue damage than the earlier subvariants. Moreover, the WHO stated that the Omicron pathogen has not changed.
