New research led by Australia's University of Queensland (UQ) has discovered how COVID-19 damages the heart, opening the door to future treatments.

The study, published in Immunology, has found that while both COVID-19 and influenza are severe respiratory viruses, they appeared to affect cardiac tissue very differently.

The research used actual cardiac tissues collected during autopsies from seven COVID-19 patients from Brazil, two people who died from influenza and six control patients.