Recovered coronavirus patients experiencing worse symptoms – Doctor

Doctors are increasingly recommending stricter adherence to the COVID-19 protocols for all persons, considering recent findings about the various variants of the virus.

A Medical Officer with the Ghana Police Hospital, Dr. Roger Ahiaku has revealed that some people who have recovered after contracting the Coronavirus, are suffering more complications than they experienced when they were initially infected.

According to him, the rate of infections after the yuletide and political season has been overwhelming. Though more investigations, tests and studies are being conducted by medical experts Dr. Ahiaku explained, data is already revealing that some patients have experienced even more severe symptoms after recovery.

In an interview with GhanaWeb, he revealed,

“Another worrisome thing is that, people who even recover from going through the ordeal of the COVID-19 virus, there are new statistics showing that the post-COVID symptoms, some people have theirs even worse than when they were infected with the virus.”

“It’s just interesting that after this festive season that passed, cases are more and coming with severe symptoms. It was later found out people who have survived COVID-19 still end up living with some complications even though they are no longer infected eg: lung fibrosis, kidney failure, heart disease and even stroke.”

Dr. Ahiaku also revealed that more patients being diagnosed with the virus in recent times are exhibiting more symptoms with very few being asymptomatic. Even though the new variants from UK and South Africa; B117 and 501Y.V2, respectively have been detected in some patients in Ghana already, he maintained that it is still unconfirmed if these are deadly, and whether or not the new symptoms are solely linked to the new variants.

“There are now two variants that have been identified from SA and UK in Ghana. They all share similar symptoms but studies done show that the original COVID-19 strain seemed to have more people complaining of loss of taste and smell as compared to the other strains.

“The new strains however are more transmissible, even though so far have not been said to be deadlier. However, at my work place, we are beginning to see more cases come up having more severe symptoms, it may be the new strain, it may not be, no study has been done to ascertain this,” he added.

He, therefore, encouraged all to keep safe by strictly adhering to all the safety protocols.

“We should try to adhere to the COVID-19 regulations that are going around. Spacing, washing of hands regularly, wearing of masks.”

The country has experienced a sharp surge in numbers in recent times, and at a faster rate, in fact, the total numbers stand at 67,782 cumulative cases so far with 61,843 recoveries.