Long-term impacts of SARS-CoV-2 on gastrointestinal tract

Abstract

COVID-19 from SARS-CoV-2 has caused a large number of infections and deaths. COVID-19 is a respiratory infectious disease caused by the combination of SARS-CoV-2 with angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor into the target organ of the host. COVID-19 patients not only have respiratory symptoms, but also some patients with symptoms such as nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Even a few patients have atypical symptoms such as diarrhea as the first manifestation, indicating that the severity of COVID-19 patients is closely related to gastrointestinal symptoms. There is currently rare researches on long-term gastrointestinal adverse impacts in patients with COVID-19. We will summarize the etiology, epidemiology and pathogenic mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 as well as the digestive system symptoms and targeted treatment of COVID-19, so as to increase the insight of the long-term gastrointestinal injury caused by SARS-CoV-2, thereby providing new therapeutic strategies and targets for gastrointestinal injury.