New symptoms in patients with the Delta strain of COVID

As the Delta variant of the coronavirus continues to advance around the world, a group of doctors have warned that the mutation is causing new symptoms in patients.

The strain discovered in India has already been detected in a hundred countries and “is spreading rapidly in regions with low and high vaccination coverage”, ratified the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus . For this reason, healthcare workers in the nation where this mutation was first found and suffered the most have reported the signs that infected people may manifest.

Along with the classic fever, dry cough, fatigue, headache, loss of smell or taste, and difficulty breathing or feeling airy, scientists believe that the Delta strain could cause gangrene, hearing loss and serious stomach upset. Thus, they see more patients suffering from diarrhea compared to the first wave of the pandemic experienced a long time ago. In addition, they also noticed other common symptoms like stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, and joint pain.

For his part, Ganesh Manudhane, a cardiologist from Mumbai, pointed out that some infected people develop small, serious blood clots which cause the affected tissue to die and gangrene. The specialist explained that two of his patients had to have their fingers or a foot amputated due to health complications; And while he’s seen three or four of those cases last year, he now has one a week.

In this sense, he stressed the importance of treating gangrene for 24 hours, because in case of non-intervention, the chances of survival are reduced to 50%. In turn, this disorder can attack any part of the body, although it usually starts in the fingers or toes with redness and swelling.

Finally, Hetal Marfatia, a surgeon at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, said those infected with Delta suffered from swelling around their necks and severe tonsillitis.

Lower efficacy of Pfizer vaccine

Israel presented a new study in which it noted a decrease in the effectiveness of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine in preventing infections and symptomatic illnesses, which coincides with the periods of greatest spread of the Delta variant. Likewise, research has shown that inoculation continues to be very effective in preventing serious disease.

The study, carried out by Israel’s health ministry and published in the Financial Times, concluded that the vaccine’s effectiveness in preventing infections and symptomatic illnesses fell to 64% since June 6. Thus, the drug fell away from the 94% protection it had previously envisioned.