Physicians and medical experts across the country, in recent times have received reports of a rather worrying development associated with the COVID-19 virus.
Some male patients who have either contracted the virus or have survived it appear to be suffering from erectile dysfunction.
A doctor with the Ghana Police Hospital, on the back of that, has given a breakdown of how the virus is affecting its victims in this regard.
According to him, the virus not only affects the immune system of people, but also the lungs and blood flow.
Dr. Roger Ahiaku explained that a condition; pulmonary embolism, which many COVID-19 patients are at risk of suffering comes with its own set of complications including the obstruction of blood flow.
The condition which blocks pulmonary arteries in one’s lungs, causes clots that travel to the lungs from deep veins in the legs, and in some cases, from veins in other parts of the body.
Dr. Ahiaku explained that it is the reason for the occurrence of erectile dysfunction in some patients and or survivors of the virus.
Explaining how it occurs, Dr. Ahiaku, in an interview with GhanaWeb said;
“With the erectile dysfunction reports, there have been quite a number of worries pertaining to this one and its valid. Some people end up with erectile dysfunction, regardless of the age; the young ones, the old ones, and it is because of the way the virus works.
"It was found out that, also young people who have passed, some of them, after they did the autopsy, they realized that, they had clot formation in their lungs (pulmonary embolism) which is not common in the young.
"After doing a few studies and tests, they realized that the virus causes the blood vessels to produce more clots and with the way erection works, the blood has to flow into the penis first for it to be erect and here is the case you have clots blocking that passage so, that’s how you end up with symptoms like that,” he said.
Dr. Ahiaku also revealed that some people who have recovered after contracting the Coronavirus, are suffering more complications than they experienced when they were initially infected.
“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 with 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.”
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 68,559 cumulative cases so far with 62,340 recoveries.
File: Some patients and survivors of COVID-19 seem to be suffering from erectile dysfunction