Director of the St. Petersburg Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after Pasteur, immunologist Areg Totolyan, in a conversation with Komsomolskaya Pravda, commented on the data of foreign scientists that coronavirus should be perceived as not a respiratory, but a vascular disease.
According to the specialist, a year and a half ago, when they just began to study COVID-19, it was argued that the main target cell of the coronavirus is an epithelial cell, and then endothelial cells. “That is, just those that line the inner surface of any vessels,” he explained.
However, in his opinion, there is no reason to call the coronavirus an infection that does not belong to the respiratory one. The specialist recalled that the main way of infection with COVID-19 is through the upper respiratory tract. “Accordingly, SARS-CoV-2 first enters the epithelial cells. And if the disease progresses, with a severe form of COVID-19, not only they are affected, but also endothelial cells, ”Totolyan explained.
He added that any infection to varying degrees can cause the development of vasculitis (inflammation of the walls of blood vessels) in the future, after some time.
Earlier, American scientists said that the coronavirus is a vascular and not a respiratory disease. According to the authors of the article, the coronavirus primarily affects the arterial circulatory system, the spike protein that forms the “crown” of the virus damages the mitochondria of cells, which leads to damage to the vascular endothelium and vascular walls.
