Shtip, 10 February 2024 (MIA) — The number of heart attacks and strokes has increased in the east of the country since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Shtip Clinical Hospital Cardiology Department head Sashko Nikolov, who said more and more patients were also being hospitalized with limb infarctions and lung infarctions as well.

The average number of cardiac patients before the pandemic started was 30 per month, Nikolov told MIA's Shtip correspondent. Now, he said, the average was 40 to 50 patients being admitted to hospital for heart disease each month.

"Now we have 40 stents per month, sometimes 50," Nikolov said. "The number of carotid stents has increased by three times. The number of peripheral patients admitted with peripheral diseases has increased five times. The coronavirus pandemic has caused a rapid rise in disease and disease severity among patients," he said.

"We have an increased number of brain diseases and heart attacks as well as an increased number of patients with limb and lung infarctions," he said.

The top cardiologist said heart attacks were on the rise in younger people and also among women, who had been thought to be at a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

However, he said, in the last two months alone, three local women under the age of 38 had been hospitalized with myocardial infarctions.

"We used to believe that female hormones protected women from heart attacks," Nikolov said, "But in the last two months we admitted three young women under 38 with heart attacks.

"We saw young men aged 27-28 with severe heart attacks," he added.

Studies have already shown that heart attack and stroke risk rises after a COVID-19 diagnosis. Back in 2021, the Harvard Medical School's newsletter, the "Harvard Heart Letter," said a large study had found strong evidence that heart attack and stroke risk rises sharply in the weeks following a SARS-CoV-2 infection.

"The findings were published Aug. 14, 2021, in The Lancet," the newsletter said, adding that the study included every person in Sweden diagnosed with COVID-19 from Feb. 1, 2020, to Sept. 14, 2020; "a total of nearly 87,000 people."

"Their median age was 48, and 57% were women. Researchers compared them with more than 348,000 Swedish people of similar age and sex who did not have the virus.

"In the week after a COVID-19 diagnosis, the risk of a first heart attack increased by three to eight times. The risk of a first stroke caused by a blood clot multiplied by three to six times," the Harvard Heart Letter said. mr/