'Lungs, kidneys are primary organs that get damaged by Covid'

kolkata: The first pathological postmortem report of a patient dying of Covid, prepared by the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital reflects some observations that lungs and kidneys are the primary organs that were badly damaged due to Covid.

Hypoxia is the main cause of death as determined by the 3-member team of doctors performing the postmortem.

For the first time in Eastern Indian, the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital has come to the conclusion as to how a Covid patient died.

The report has been submitted to Swasthya Bhawan by the team headed by Prof (Dr) Somnath Das, Head of the department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology. The first pathological postmortem was performed on the body of Brojo Roy, secretary of Gana Darpan on May 14.

In its observation the team of doctors said that the lungs and kidneys of Roy were badly damaged and the patient mainly died of hypoxia.

The pathological autopsy was carried out to find out how the infection transmitted from one organ to another and how it caused damages.

The report says that alveolar membranes on lungs were damaged due to Covid as a result oxygen flow into the body was disrupted.

"Main objective of a pathological postmortem is to find out the patho-physiology of any disease. In this case the cause of death was not similar. While conducting the postmortem, we found that lungs and kidneys were damaged badly," Dr Das said.

Hypoxia is the main cause of death. Lungs are covered with alveolar membranes which were damaged. As a result there has been an increased amount of inflow of liquid that gets entered into alveolar causing hindrance for oxygen to enter lungs and also to the body," Dr Das said.

In the case of kidneys we also found death of different cells.

Damage in kidneys fails to drive toxin out as a result it continues to get deposited, complicating the situation.

If kidneys fail, elimination of toxin does not happen inside the body, Prof Das also mentioned.

RG Kar Medical College and Hospital is likely to submit two other pathological postmortem reports to the health department later this week. It has already carried out 6 pathological autopsies.