3 | NOT ONLY FIGHTING AGAINST COVID-19, BUT ALSO
LOWERING CARDIOVASCULAR RISK
According to a new report on cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in China
(22), there are 290 million patients with CVD and the prevalence and
death rate are still on the rise, and CVD remains the No. 1 “killer”
of global residents. Thus, it’s time to strengthen the prevention and
treatment of CVD, diabetes, and cancer during fighting against and after
combating Covid-19. At the same time, it’s very important to speed up
the development, clinical trials, and application of antiviral drugs and
Covid-19 vaccines.
Not only fighting against Covid-19 but also effectively lowering
cardiovascular risk should be done better, because there are obviously
weight gain and abnormal indicators among CVD patients during the
Covid-19 pandemic lockdown and restrictions. If not enough preventive
measures, many individuals preexisting CVD may die not of Covid-19 but
major adverse cardiocerebrovascular events (MACCE), such as cardiac
injury, cardiac arrest, acute coronary syndrome, heart failure, stroke,
and other unexpected events.
There are myocardial inflammation (23)
in patients
with COVID-19 due to an immune-mediated myopathy by SARS-CoV-2
infection (24). Actually, there is myocarditis among 33.3% of Covid-19
confirmed cases (25). Herein, SARS-CoV-2-induced myocarditis,
endothelial injury, and microvascular/macrovascular thrombosis are
common pathophysiological features (26, 27). There is also acute
myocardial injury including both epicardial vessel thrombosis and
microvascular thrombosis identified by cardiovascular magnetic resonance
(CMR) imaging in Covid-19 cases (28).
In some cases, post-vaccination myocarditis may occur (29, 30), but it
remains unceitain (31), hence, long follow-up is needed. There were also
slight cardiac abnormalities (imaging features of pericardial
inflammation) in college student athletes (32). Some cases may suffer
from cardiac arrest (33). There are also common atrial arrhythmias
(atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter, AF/AFL) due to the systemic
inflammation of severe viral illnesses (34), even postural orthostatic
tachycardia syndrome (35). Covid-19 cases treated with
hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin (HCQ/AZM) had an increase in
corrected QT (QTc) prolongation (36). These problems on
cardiovascular health are direct or indirect consequences related to
infection of the SARS-CoV-2 and its variants (37). Thus, during the
Covid-19 pandemic, there was an increase in deaths in the US due to CVD
including ischemic heart disease and hypertension (38).