IF you’ve had Covid and gotten over the nasty bug, you might think you’re out of the woods.
But experts have revealed that people who catch coronavirus are more at risk of a deadly stroke.
Strokes are a medical emergency and happen when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off.
There are usually two main causes, this can be because of a blood clot or when a weakened blood vessel supplying the brain bursts
Another related condition is called a transient ischaemic attack (TIA), where the blood supply to the brain is temporarily interrupted.
Medics investigating illness after Covid infection found that people who had the virus faced a 72 per cent higher risk of heart failure after 12 months.
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Even those who didn’t have an illness severe enough to be hospitalised could develop problems.
Writing in Nature Medicine, medics warned long-term effects could be seen in the heart and vascular system.
These include cardiac arrest, heart failure, stroke, irregular heart rhythms, blood clots, blood vessel diseases and inflammation disorders.
Experts looked at data for over 11 million US veterans, including 154,000 who had Covid.
They then estimated the risks within a year for about 20 cardiovascular diseases.
The researchers found those who had Covid a year before were at a significantly higher risk, compared to those who hadn’t had the bug.
This risk then rose the more serious their case was.
Evelina Grayver, director of women’s heart health at Northwell Health in New York, who wasn’t involved with the study, told Fox News: “There were 20 cardiac disorders that were diagnosed for those patients that are suffering from long haul Covid.
“The most common is the shortness of breath and fatigue.
“The new arrhythmias, or the abnormal heart rhythms that people experience, are significant as well and can become incredibly handicapping for a lot of patients.”
It it worth noting, however, that the study period ended before vaccines were available.
So almost all of the veterans studied had not had a single jab when they caught Covid.
