COVID-19 disease: a nephrologist’s perspective

Novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a newly discovered contagious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)–coronavirus (CoV)-2 virus. It manifests primarily as an acute respiratory illness with interstitial and alveolar pneumonia, but it can affect multiple organs such as the kidney, heart, digestive tract, blood, and nervous system. Kidney involvement has been recognised as a serious complication of COVID -19 infection. Renal involvement can manifest from asymptomatic urinary abnormality to life-threatening dialysis requiring renal failure. . Risk factors for AKI included older age, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, black race, hypertension and need for ventilation and vasopressor medications. Asymptomatic Covid-19 infection is common in patients on Maintainance hemodialysis and would need strict precautions to prevent the spread of infection. Post kidney transplant covid 19 infection carries a high risk of allograft dysfunction and mortality.