WESTON, Fla. – The National Institutes of Health is now launching a database to track neurological symptoms associated with COVID-19 with the hopes of gaining greater understanding about the impact of the virus on the brain, spinal cord, nerves and muscles.
“I think this is a wonderful idea and is very important because we see patients all the time who have COVID, some of them go through the disease process easily and some of them end up in the intensive care unit. A lot of them wind up with symptoms from delirium to stroke, which is what I treat, to other symptoms that are more subtle like depression, anxiety and fatigue. We see these patients, but we can’t put it all together because we don’t have a large sample,” said Dr. Michal Obrzut, a neurologist with the Cleveland Clinic Weston.
He said a nationwide, or possibly a worldwide database to track the neurological effects of COVID-19 can open the door for better treatment options for patients in the future.
And while pregnant women appear to produce a robust antibody response to COVID-19, a recent study found that their babies may not benefit as much as expected.
An analysis by researchers at Emory University in Atlanta found that while COVID neutralizing activity, which measures the potency of antibody response, was found in 94-percent of pregnant women with COVID, only 25 percent of umbilical cord blood samples showed the same neutralizing activity.
Researchers were surprised by the findings because antibody transfer rates are higher with other viral infections.
The study investigators are now expanding their protocols to included vaccinated pregnant patients.