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'Long Covid': Why are some people not recovering?


For most people, COVID-19 is a brief and mild disease but some are left struggling with symptoms including lasting fatigue, persistent pain and breathlessness for months. The condition known as "long Covid" is having a debilitating effect on people's lives, and stories of being left exhausted after even a short walk are now common.

There is no medical definition or list of symptoms shared by all patients - two people with long Covid can have very different experiences. However, the most common feature is crippling fatigue.

Others symptoms include: breathlessness, a cough that won't go away, joint pain, muscle aches, hearing and eyesight problems, headaches, loss of smell and taste as well as damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys and gut. Mental health problems have been reported including depression, anxiety and struggling to think clearly.

Long Covid is not just people taking time to recover from a stay in intensive care. Even people with relatively mild infections can be left with lasting and severe health problems.

"We've got no doubt long Covid exists," Prof David Strain, from the University of Exeter, who is already seeing long-Covid patients at his Chronic Fatigue Syndrome clinic, told the BBC.

A study of 143 people in Rome's biggest hospital, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, followed hospital patients after they were discharged. It showed 87% had at least one symptom nearly two months later and more than half still had fatigue.

The Covid Symptom Tracker App - used by around four million people in the UK - found 12% of people still had symptoms after 30 days. Its latest, unpublished data, suggests as many as one in 50 (2%) of all people infected have long-Covid symptoms after 90 days.

The number of people with long-Covid appears to be falling with time. However, the virus emerged only at the end of 2019 before going global earlier this year so there is a lack of long-term data.

"We've asked, deliberately, to follow people for 25 years, I certainly hope only a very small number will have problems going beyond a year, but I could be wrong," said Prof Brightling.

However, there are concerns that even if people appear to recover now, they could face lifelong risks. People who have had chronic fatigue syndrome are more likely to have it again and the concern is that future infections may cause more flare-ups.

"If long Covid follows the same pattern I'd expect some recovery, but if it takes just another coronavirus infection to react then this could be every winter," said Prof Strain.

It is still possible more problems could emerge in the future.

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Source: BBC News, 6 October 2020

 

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