The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to spread across all countries and is increasingly posing significant health and economic risk to millions of Australians.

This infectious disease presents with respiratory symptoms, fever, dry cough, shortness of breath, and breathing difficulties. If left untreated, symptoms can worsen to pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure, and death¹.

The Journal of the American College of Cardiology has released an article outlining the “Cardiovascular Considerations for Patients, Health Care Workers, and Health Systems During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic.”

The article which focused on COVID-19 and cardiovascular disease found that those with pre-existing heart conditions “are at an increased risk of severe disease and death,” and the infections have been associated with direct and indirect complications “including acute myocardial injury, myocarditis, arrhythmias, and venous thromboembolism².”

A number of organisations are working on developing a vaccine across the globe, however, the article stated that these therapies may incur cardiovascular side effects³. Alarmingly, as an increase in patients puts additional stress on healthcare systems, another consideration for cardiovascular compromised patients is “the rapid triage of non-COVID-19 patients with cardiovascular conditions⁴.”

To read the full article from JACC Journals, click the link here.

Has your medical role been impacted by COVID-19? Submit a comment about how your workplace is coping during this health crisis. 

References:

1. CSIRO
2. Journal of the American College of Cardiology
3. Journal of the American College of Cardiology
4. Journal of the American College of Cardiology