Let us go back to the time when COVID -19 was declared a pandemic. At the end of 2019, a new virus, Coronavirus known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus-2 or SARS-CoV2, caused an infection called COVID-19. It hit the world after originating in Wuhan, China, and the World Health Organization (WHO) named the disease coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). On January 30, 2020, it was declared a global health emergency. While safeguarding yourself from this disease, by taking all the necessary precautions and continuing with your Post COVID-19 rehabilitation, it is also important for you to understand this disease in a better way, you should first try to find out how it affects your lungs. In this blog, we will discuss lung pathology related to COVID-19.
Lungs are two spongy organs situated in your chest under your ribs. The right lung is divided into three lobes, the upper lobe, middle lobe, and lower lobe. The left lung is divided into two parts, the upper lobe, and the lower lobe. When you breathe, air flows in through your mouth and nose down through your trachea, and airways into your lungs. The trachea divides at a junction known as Carina. The trachea divides at the carina into two bronchi, which further divide into right and left smaller tree-like branches called Bronchioles. At the end of bronchioles are present tiny air sacs called Alveoli, at these alveoli gas exchange takes place. These sacs are surrounded by tiny blood vessels. Here oxygen from your lungs passes into your bloodstream to go to tissues throughout your body. The oxygen passes from the alveoli into the bloodstream and oxygen from the bloodstream enters into the alveoli. The lung is situated on a soft thin muscle called Diaphragm. The diaphragm also helps us to breathe. It is a very important organ that helps in breathing. The lungs are connected to the immune system through lymph nodes. The lymph nodes and their vessels carry bacteria and other toxic materials away from the lung, into other organs from where they get filtered out. If you get some infection from bacteria or viruses, you may develop pneumonia which is an infection of the lungs. Sometimes these germs in form of bacteria or viruses might enter the trachea and through bronchioles enter into air sacs (alveoli). Normally, the cells from the immune system attack these germs which prevents you from falling sick but if you are old aged or have some illness your immune system may become weak. Pneumonia-causing germs can overcome the immune system and attack your alveoli. This causes swelling or inflammation in the alveoli, filling the alveoli with fluid and making your body difficult to get the oxygen it needs. This causes difficulty in breathing, fever, chills, cough, sputum production body aches, body weakness, muscle fatigue, muscle pain, and headache. These conditions can lead to serious complications like respiratory failure, the breathing becomes so hampered in the latter stages that you may require a machine called a Ventilator to breathe.
COVID-19 is a disease caused by a virus. The virus infects cells along your airways by attaching to ACE2 and other molecules in these cells. The virus uses ACE2 as a door to reach into the cells and then replicates itself. The virus reduces the ACE2 inflammation system reaction, this 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 the blood thus causing the oxygen levels to fall and you may feel short of breath. Researchers think that the virus latches onto the molecule to get into the cells. The effect of ACE2 to reduce inflammation is lost when the virus occupies ACE2. Research has been done to focus on delivering safe and effective treatments for people infected with SARS-COV2.
People with diabetes, chronic lung disease, and heart or blood disease 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 wearing a mask and keeping a distance of at least one meter while interacting. And also don't forget to sanitize.
