El Paso doctor warns about heart health risks during virus pandemic

EL PASO, Texas -- As the battle against Covid-19 continues, medical experts are learning more about the virus and its relationship to other organs in the body, especially the heart.

Dr. Laiq Raja, is an interventional cardiologist who has been serving the El Paso community for 20 years, and has been looking into how the heart can suffer from a coronavirus infection.

He's also examining what those at risk should be doing to minimize their vulnerability.

Dr. Raja pointed out the medical community is also learning more about how the virus hops from the lungs to other organs.

“The receptors of Covid-19 which are the ACE-2 receptors, are also present in the heart and other parts of the body," he said.

According to Dr. Raja, heart disease and obesity mark a key vulnerability for the heart to the virus.

“There is a weakness of the heart muscle due to inflammation and the damage to heart muscles can lead to heart failure," said Dr. Raja. “When we compare different ages and different people who have different diseases some are more vulnerable, but everyone can be infected and it can be lethal to them.”

He added that an infection isolated in the lungs can certainly be defeated but once the virus successfully moves to another organ, the chances of survival decrease rapidly.