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A group of Brazilian scientists has detected, for the first time, the presence of the new coronavirus in the gums of some patients who died as a result of covid-19, academic sources said Thursday.
The discovery is the result of a study by the Faculty of Medicine of the University of São Paulo (USP) and was published in the “Journal of Oral Microbiology”.
“The presence of SARS-CoV-2 in periodontal tissue may be one of the contributing factors to the presence of this virus in the saliva of infected patients,” said Bruno Matuck, one of the authors of the state-backed research. . São Paulo Research Support Foundation (Fapesp).
Other viruses had previously been identified in gingival tissue, such as herpes, Epstein-Barr or cytomegalovirus.
Based on this, Brazilian scientists hypothesized that the new coronavirus, due to its high infection rate compared to other respiratory pathogens, could reproduce in the oral cavity and thus appear in saliva.
To test this hypothesis, the scientists took samples from the salivary glands, gums and upper respiratory tract, as well as taste buds, from seven patients who died of complications related to Covid-19.
Clinical analyzes confirmed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the periodontal tissue of five of the seven deaths, in some cases up to 24 days after the onset of the first symptoms of the disease.
“These findings show that periodontal tissue appears to be a target for SARS-CoV-2 and may, for a long time, contribute to its appearance in saliva samples,” Matuck explained.
However, the study notes that the presence of the virus in saliva for a prolonged period “does not mean that the viral RNA particles are infectious for that long.”
“Other studies show that the contagion capacity of the virus decreases over time and reaches its peak in 15 days,” said the coordinator of the investigation, Luiz Fernando Ferraz.
On the other hand, the detection of the new coronavirus in the gums also corroborates, according to the report, that the inflation of this tissue (periodontitis) increases the risk of developing a serious condition of covid-19.
“Since SARS-CoV-2 infects periodontal tissue, increased gum fluid secretion increases the burden of the virus in saliva,” Matuck explained.
Brazil, the country that currently registers the most cases and deaths from covid-19, is experiencing the worst moment of the pandemic, with an average of almost 2,300 daily deaths and much of its public health system collapsing or close to this situation.
In just thirteen months of the pandemic, the country has already registered more than 300 thousand deaths and 12.2 million infected.
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