Why can organs fail under COVID-19?

How does the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, travel from the lungs of a diseased person to other organs and then cause their failure? Scientists from Hematology Research Center, Peoples Friendship University of Russia and Lomonosov Moscow State University have found the answer to this question.

According to "Gazeta.ru", the scientists found out that the virus migrates from the lungs via blood and lymph, but in order to do so, the lungs must be in the initial stage of inflammation and have a high viral load. Scientists have also found that the cause of organ failure is not the mere presence of the virus in the cells but rather hypoxia caused by impaired blood supply.

Adhamjon Abdullayev says that they hypothesize that under conditions of impaired circulation in the lung, the lymphohematogenic route becomes the main way for coronavirus particles to spread from the lungs to other organs, as evidenced by the high frequency of SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection in mediastinal lymph nodes.

During the study, specialists analyzed tissues of 36 patients who died of COVID-19. In a third of those studied, SARS-CoV-2 was found only in the lungs, but in the majority of respondents (63.9%) several organs were affected. Traces of the virus were also detected in 86.9% of the lymph nodes, 56.5% had the virus in the heart, 52.2% of patients had SARS-CoV-2 RNA detected in the spleen, 47.8% in the liver, 26% in the kidneys, and 13% of the subjects had the virus present in the brain.