Press release
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Many people who have COVID-19 fully recover and return to basic health; however, some people have symptoms or other sequelae weeks or months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection. These heterogeneous symptoms were the subject of the “Workshop on post-acute sequelae of COVID-19” hosted on December 2 and 4, 2020, by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in collaboration with other institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health . A paper recently published in Annals of Internal Medicine describe the workshop. More than 1,200 registered participants, including researchers, doctors and affected community members, discussed what is known about the aftermath of COVID-19 and the knowledge gaps that need to be addressed in future research.
The constellation of symptoms and other effects faced by those who do not return to their initial state of health after COVID-19 has been mentioned by numerous names, including post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) and long or long-stretch COVID. Symptoms can be severe and lasting and can affect many organ systems. Reported symptoms include severe fatigue, cognitive dysfunction and difficulty breathing, as well as psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression. The longer-term effects of COVID-19 have been reported in all age and demographic groups and in individuals with initial asymptomatic, mild, or severe COVID-19 disease. If only a small proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infections lead to longer-term effects, the overall burden of the disease will be significant.
In addition to reviewing existing data, the workshop presenters identified important knowledge gaps. In particular, epidemiology is not fully characterized and will need to be expanded to identify and help vulnerable groups of people. The full clinical spectrum of post-acute COVID-19 is not yet known, nor are the reasons why symptoms are so different in individuals. The underlying pathophysiology is not determined and may be due to SARS-CoV-2 itself or the immune response to infection.
Because COVID-19 is a new disease, researchers are still documenting the recovery spectrum and trying to understand the different outcomes that patients may experience. People who do not return to their initial state of health have various clinical conditions, which will require individualized and multidisciplinary approaches to treatment.
The workshop discussions highlighted the fact that longitudinal studies will be needed, ideally, including systematic assessments of different organ systems and including various populations, to correctly characterize post-acute COVID-19. Careful study of the virus and the immune response to infection can help researchers understand how post-acute COVID-19 manifestations occur. These research efforts will need to involve collaboration between physicians, researchers, advocacy groups and patient communities.
Article
Lerner et al. Towards Understanding COVID-19 Recovery: National Institutes of Health Workshop on Postacute COVID-19. Annals of Internal Medicine DOI: 10.7326 / M21-1043 (2021).
Which
Dr. Emily Erbelding, director of the NIAID Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID), is available for comment.
Contact
To schedule interviews, please contact Elizabeth Deatrick, (301) 402-1663, [email protected].
NIAID conducts and supports research – at the NIH, throughout the United States and around the world – to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these diseases. Press releases, fact sheets and other materials related to NIAID are available on the NIAID website.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):
NIH, the national medical research agency, includes 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the US Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the leading federal agency that conducts and supports basic, clinical, and translational medical research and investigates the causes, treatments, and cures of both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
NIH … Transforming discovery into health®