SAN DIEGO — UC San Diego has joined forces with researchers in the United Kingdom to learn more about COVID-19. Doctors in the United States and doctors on the other side of the world are working to solve a COVID-19 medical mystery.
UCSD physician scientist Pradipta Ghosh has worked with researchers at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.
Ghosh said doctors are seeing new symptoms related to COVID-19 that haven’t been seen in the U.S.
According to Ghosh, patients reported rashes on their palms, muscle pain and other new conditions.
The doctors studied a group of vaccinated COVID-19 patients and once the doctors put their brains together, they figured it out.
“dermatomyositis. It is one of those diseases that our body makes antibodies towards a protein called MDA5, and typically these patients present with rashes, joint pain, muscle aches maybe and some of them have this very bad scarring of the lung,” Ghosh said.
Now, the researchers’s job is to let other doctors know what to watch out for.
"The rash, the aches and pains, those patients may end up going to their regular doctor and maybe they would not get answers to explain their symptoms,” Ghosh said.”Medicine is quite specialized when it comes to these and unless we are thinking of connecting the dots, we may miss the diagnoses."
According to Ghosh, the main symptom that could be a cause for concern involves damage to the lungs.
The rash doesn't kill us. The muscle ache doesn't kill us. The autoimmune antibodies doesn't kill us. It is the fibrosing lung that for sure is the major driver of fatality,” Ghosh said.
Ghosh shared some advice for you and your family.
"Whatever they were doing prior to getting mild covid if they cannot do it after it, that should trigger a reason to set up an appointment with your doctor,” Ghosh said.
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