Liver and Covid 19

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), a respiratory illness caused by novel coronavirus. Symptoms are mainly fever, dry cough, sore throat, loss of taste and in severe case respiratory distress. It usually spread from person to person through close contact with one another, from respiratory droplets generated from affected person’s cough or sneeze.

Older patients with pre-existing comorbidities have been identified as populations at risk of a severe disease. It still unclear whether chronic liver diseases should be considered as risk factors, however, patients with advanced decompensated liver disease or post liver transplantation represent vulnerable patient with an increased risk of infection or severity of COVID-19.

Though mild liver dysfunction e.g. increased levels of liver enzymes — like alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) seen in patients infected with Covid 19, significant liver damage is more common in patients who have severe COVID-19 disease.