Critical care workers insert an endotracheal tube into a patient with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) positive in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Florida, February 11, 2021.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
Some patients with Covid-19 experience difficulty breathing, fatigue, headaches and “brain fog” for months to almost a year after the initial illness. Now, global medical experts are working to better diagnose and treat them for what they temporarily call “Long Covid.”
Earlier this week, the World Health Organization hosted a global meeting with “patients, doctors and other stakeholders” to promote the agency’s understanding of what is called a post-Covid medical condition, also known as Covid, director general of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. he said on Friday.
The meeting was the first of many to come. The goal will eventually be to create an “agreed-upon clinical description” of the condition so that doctors can effectively diagnose and treat patients, he said. Given the number of people infected with the virus globally – nearly 108 million people since Friday – Tedros has warned that many are likely to experience these persistent symptoms.
“This disease affects patients with Covid-19 both severely and mildly,” Tedros said during a press briefing at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. Part of the challenge is that patients with long Covid may have a number of different symptoms, which may be persistent or may come and go.
Limited data
To date, there are a limited number of studies that discern what are the most common symptoms of long-term covid or how long it might last. The greatest attention has been paid to people with a severe or fatal illness, not to those who have recovered, but who still report persistent side effects, sometimes referred to as “long distance carriers”.
It is believed that most patients with Covid recover only a few weeks after the initial diagnosis, but some have had symptoms for six months or even almost a year, say medical experts.
One of the largest global long-term studies by Covid, published in early January, found that many people suffering from ongoing illnesses after infection cannot return to work at full capacity six months later. The study, which was published in MedRxiv and was not evaluated by colleagues, surveyed more than 3,700 people between the ages of 18 and 80 in 56 countries to identify symptoms.
The most common symptoms experienced after six months were fatigue, fatigue after exercise and cognitive dysfunction, sometimes called cerebral fog, the study found.
Is it unique to Covid-19?
“We really don’t know what causes these symptoms. This is the focus of research right now,” said Dr. Allison Navis, a professor at Mount Iinahn School of Medicine in Sinai, during a call with the Society for Infectious Diseases of America on Friday .
“There is a question as to whether this is something unique to Covid itself – and it is the Covid virus that triggers these symptoms – or whether this could be part of a general post-viral syndrome,” Navis said, adding that medical experts consider that they are similar – term symptoms after other viral infections.
Another study published in early January in the medical journal The Lancet looked at 1,733 patients who were discharged from a hospital in Wuhan, China, between January and May last year. Of these patients, 76% reported at least one symptom six months after the initial illness. The proportion was higher in women.
“We found that fatigue or muscle weakness, difficulty sleeping and anxiety or depression were common, even 6 months after the onset of symptoms,” the researchers wrote in the study.
They noted that the symptoms reported a few months after someone’s diagnosis of Covid-19 were consistent with data previously found in follow-up studies of severe acute respiratory syndrome or SARS, which is also a coronavirus.
Post-Covid clinics come online
Some large medical centers are now setting up post-Covid clinics to help care for patients with persistent symptoms. Navis said her Sinai Mountain clinic in New York treated a “fairly uniform” distribution of men and women with persistent illnesses, and the average age of the patient is 40, she said.
Dr. Kathleen Bell, a professor at Southwestern Medical Center at the University of Texas, said her hospital’s long-term Covid-19 clinic began in April last year, when a wave of infections hit Italy and New York at the start of the pandemic.
Bell, speaking Friday at the call of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said a number of professionals are required to hire clinics because the symptoms are uneven, including experts who can treat muscle weakness, heart disease and cognitive problems for those who faces mental problems. health problems after their diagnosis.
“Indeed, in many ways, it forces us all to come together and make sure we have open lines of communication to address all of these issues for patients,” Bell said.
Bell added that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hosted a call with long Covid centers across the country in January to discuss their model of treating patients.
“I think the CDC is now trying to gather centers and get some stronger guidelines for this, which is very interesting,” Bell said.
– CNBC Sam Meredith contributed to this report.