Could Microclots Help Explain the Long Covid Mystery? | Resia Pretorius

THEOne of the biggest failures during the Covid-19 pandemic is our slow response in the diagnosis and treatment of prolonged Covid. As much as 100 million people worldwide I already suffer from long Covid. That staggering number will eventually be much higher, considering that the diagnoses are still inadequate and we don’t yet know what the impact of Omicron and future variants will be.

Long-term Covid patients complain of numerous symptomThe main ones being recurrent fatigue and mental confusion, muscle weakness, shortness of breath and low oxygen levels, sleeping difficulties, and anxiety or depression. Some patients are so ill that they cannot work or even walk a few steps. There may also be an elevated risk of stroke and heart attacks. One of the biggest sources of concern is that even an initial mild and sometimes asymptomatic Covid-19 infection can lead to long-term debilitating disability.

Since early 2020, we and other researchers have pointed out of that Acute Covid-19 is not just a lung disease, it actually significantly affects the vascular system (blood flow) and coagulation systems (blood clotting).

A recent study in my laboratory revealed that there is significant microclot formation in the blood of patients with acute Covid-19 and with prolonged Covid. With a healthy physiology, clots can form (for example, when cut). However, the body efficiently breaks down clots through a process called fibrinolysis.

In the blood of patients with prolonged Covid, persistent microclots are resistant to the body’s own fibrinolytic processes. We found high levels of various inflammatory molecules trapped in the persistent microclots., including clotting proteins such as plasminogen, fibrinogen, and von Willebrand factor (VWF), as well as antiplasmin alpha-2 (a molecule that prevents the breakdown of microclots).

The presence of persistent microclots and overactivated platelets (also involved in clotting) perpetuates clotting and vascular pathology, causing cells to not receive enough oxygen in the tissues to maintain bodily functions (known as cellular hypoxia) . Generalized hypoxia may be central to the many debilitating symptoms reported.

So why are Covid patients for a long time unable to go to the nearest clinic or doctor to find treatment options? There are currently no general pathology tests available to diagnose these patients.

Desperately ill patients are told that their pathology test results are within normal / healthy ranges. Many are then told that their symptoms are possibly psychological and that they should try meditation or exercise. The main reason traditional laboratory tests do not detect any of the inflammatory molecules is that they are trapped within tough fibrinolytic microclots (visible under a bright-field or fluorescence microscope, as our research has shown). When the molecular content of the soluble part of plasma is measured, inflammatory molecules, including autoantibodies, are simply overlooked.