A new study has raised the alarm again: various viral infections, including Covid-19, flu and shingles, significantly increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

According to the research, published in the journal of the American Heart Association, the risk of suffering a heart attack is triples in the weeks after a Covid infection and quadruples after a flu case. The work, led by Dr.Kosuke Kawai,professor of medicine at the University of California,Los Angeles,analyzed more than 150 previous studies.

Although the results vary depending on size and methodology, they all point in the same direction: viral infections trigger inflammatory processes that can affect the cardiovascular system, even long after the initial infection.

The revelation, which confirms what different scientific groups had been observing since the pandemic, was received with attention by Argentine specialists. Both infectious disease specialists and cardiologists agree that the key is in the prevention: vaccination, especially in people with risk factors.

Infectologist Eduardo López,professor of vaccinology at the University of Salvador,explains that “it has been known for a long time that the flu can affect the heart,either by direct action,causing injury to the heart muscle or myocarditis,or by the inflammatory response that the disease generates.”

This inflammation,he adds,”can damage both the heart muscle and the coronary arteries,and this can occur both in the acute phase and during the course.” In the case of Covid-19, the mechanism is similar, although with particularities: “The virus produces a direct injury to the arteries or the coronary tree, causing endothelitis, an inflammation of the endothelium, the inner layer of the blood vessel. This injury can generate thrombi that clog the arteries and lead to a heart attack,” he details.