Club Meeting

On Thursday SEPT 1st we were privileged to hear Dr Binita Kane deliver us a comprehensive lecture on the available treatments for Long Covid.  Dr Kane was a guest of Raj, she was introduced to us by Manojit and was accompanied by her father Professor Bim Bhowmick .  She promised to keep her presentation simple but I was back 50 years to the lecture theatre at UCL thinking if this is simple I should hate to hear the complicated!.

A charming and articulate speaker she promised to tell us of the effect Long Covid (LC) had had , not only on the population at large but on her own 12 year old daughter Jasmine as well.  LC is defined as suffering from symptoms 3 months after the initial infection.  Sadly it is extremely common and its effects are similar to those suffered by ME and glandular fever patients and other post viral illnesses. There are about 2 million suffers in the UK and of these 1.1 million have debilitating symptoms. The financial burden has been catastrophic while absenteeism has gone through the roof.

What are the causes of this grim disorder ? It is thought that the virus still lurks in the body with fragments of the virus still found in all the tissues up to 500 days after the first infection.  Perhaps Covid is reactivating dormant viruses in the same way as Shingles and Glandular Fever, or the virus is triggering anti bodies which attack the body itself.

Most significantly the virus may be causing the blood to clot in an unusual way producing microclots which clog up the capillaries and therefore the blood supply to all the organs thus affecting the whole body.  This can result in abnormal angina, brain fog, strokes and hearing loss.  Exacerbation of all existing cardiovascular disorders may occur along with alteration to brain size and kidney disorders.

She then posed the question, what can be done to ameliorate this disorder?  She proposes that physicians should be encouraged to believe their patients and not fob them off with platitudes.  There are serious mental health issues here especially with children and young people.  There is a tendency to encourage patients to pull themselves together and exercise more which frequently causes over fatigued individuals to collapse. 

Urticarial rashes can be a severe side effect apparently caused by over stimulation of mast cells in the blood. This can be treated with conventional drugs but above all compassion is the order of the day, it’s not all in the patient’s imagination!

To return now to Dr Binatin’s daughter.  Poor Jasmine has suffered considerably over the past months, and she has been taken over to Germany on five occasions to be treated by a Dr Jaeger who has performed blood washing to remove over stimulated sticky platelets.  She has been treated with pro biotic therapy for her gut and has undergone stimulation of the vagus nerve all of which, we were delighted to hear, has resulted in a much healthier outcome.  

Finally our entertaining speaker emphasised that despite the Government’s platitudes the infection is far from over.  She advocated continuing caution and the continuation of good ventilation, rigorous hand washing and the wearing of suitable face masks.

A number of questions followed, and our President Annette thanked Dr Binita for an enlightening talk. Let’s hope it won’t be too long before she visits us again.

(Reporting by Steve Davies)