Raza Syed Moosa, Ebrahim Farah, Ekea Herman, Ali Sayed K
Medicine, University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA.
Internal Medicine, The Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi, KEN.
Cureus. 2022 Apr 24;14(4):e24431. doi: 10.7759/cureus.24431. eCollection 2022 Apr.
The new coronavirus quickly spread throughout the world in late 2019 and became a pandemic in early 2020. The most common symptoms observed are fever, dry cough, loss of taste and smell, and respiratory distress. Other rarer complications can involve the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, or neurological systems. Of the neurological complications, epileptic seizures are a subject of particular interest due to their relatively unknown and widespread etiologies. It is understood that the entry or production of pro-inflammatory cytokines during a COVID-19 infection can result in neurotransmitter modulation and ion channel dysfunction, leading to neuronal hyperexcitability, presenting as seizures. To the best of our knowledge, we present the first case in sub-Saharan Africa of a COVID-19 positive patient presenting to our institution with a reported seizure followed by confusion. Our case highlights the need to broaden our differential diagnosis to include COVID-19 infections in patients presenting with seizures.
新型冠状病毒于2019年末迅速在全球传播，并于2020年初成为大流行病。观察到的最常见症状是发热、干咳、味觉和嗅觉丧失以及呼吸窘迫。其他较罕见的并发症可能累及心血管、胃肠道或神经系统。在神经系统并发症中，癫痫发作因其病因相对不明且广泛而备受关注。据了解，在COVID-19感染期间促炎细胞因子的产生或进入可导致神经递质调节和离子通道功能障碍，从而导致神经元兴奋性过高，表现为癫痫发作。据我们所知，我们报告了撒哈拉以南非洲地区首例COVID-19阳性患者，该患者到我们机构就诊时出现癫痫发作，随后出现意识模糊。我们的病例强调，对于出现癫痫发作的患者，需要扩大鉴别诊断范围，将COVID-19感染纳入其中。
