Stroke and Covid-19: The Experience of the Ziguinchor/Senegal Epidemic Treatment Center

Abstract

Introduction: SARS-CoV-2 infection seems to have a brain tropism involving several pathophysiological mechanisms. The objective of our work was to study the epidemiological, clinical, paraclinical and evolutionary aspects of stroke patients following SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methodology: This was a retrospective descriptive and analytical study from 26 March 2020 to 30 September 2021, which took place at the Ziguinchor epidemic treatment center. All patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 confirmed by RT-PCR with clinical signs suggestive of stroke and confirmed by brain CT scan were included in our study. Patients with incomplete or unexploitable records were excluded. Results: Twenty-four patients were collected out of a total of 186 severe cases, a prevalence of 12.90%. All patients had an ischemic stroke. The mean age was 69 ± 6 years with extremes of 58 and 84 years. The sex ratio (M/F) was 1.2. Diabetes and hypertension were co-morbidities in 87.50% and 25% of cases respectively. Clinical signs were dominated by a hemi-corporal deficit (87.5%) and dyspnea (75%). All patients were on anticoagulation and corticosteroids. The evolution was favourable in 62.5% of patients against 37.5% of death. Conclusion: SARS-CoV-2 infection is responsible for numerous neurovascular complications and this risk increases with the presence of diabetes, arterial hypertension and emboligenic heart disease. Corticosteroid therapy and anticoagulation have allowed us to improve the prognosis of patients.