At least one in five experiences long COVID, says a report
Long COVID is when the person experiences the symptoms of COVID months after being diagnosed with the infection. The World Health Organisation (WHO) refers to it as post-COVID condition and calls it as a constellation of long-term symptoms that some people experience after they have had COVID.
As per a report carried by the Conversation, many patients recover from COVID within a week or two, but at least one in five experience persistent or new symptoms more than four weeks after first being diagnosed.
This alarming data calls for an extra careful attitude towards the viral attack. The impact of the viral attack can be seen even weeks after recovery.
Long COVID: What does the report say?
"On average, the risk is higher for people with more severe disease, but many develop long COVID after a mild initial illness. Long COVID is more common in women than men, but there is no consistent relationship with age. Although the initial viral illness is more severe for older people, this is not true for long COVID," says the report.
In many patients, COVID symptoms persist for more than 12 months.
The report highlights the range of severity of long COVID. Long COVID havoc can range from damage to tissue, to having blood clots to resulting in deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and stroke.
Read: Canadian study finds COVID-19 deaths higher during weekends than weekdays; here's why
Why does long COVID occur?
While many people fully recover from COVID, many others develop long term effects.
As per a study, this could be partially explained by host-controlled factors that influence the outcome of the viral infection, including genetic susceptibility, age of the host when infected, dose and route of infection, induction of anti-inflammatory cells and proteins, presence of concurrent infections, past exposure to cross-reactive agents, etc.
What are long COVID symptoms?
A research study has identified a total of 55 long-term effects associated with COVID. "Most of the effects correspond to clinical symptoms such as fatigue, headache, joint pain, anosmia, ageusia, etc. In addition, diseases such as stroke and diabetes mellitus were also present," the study says.
The most common long COVID symptoms are: fatigue, headache, attention disorder, hair loss, dyspnea, cough, chest discomfort, reduced pulmonary diffusing capacity, sleep apnea, and pulmonary fibrosis, arrhythmias, myocarditis, dementia, depression, anxiety, attention disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorders.
Unusual symptoms like tinnitus, and night sweat were also seen in some people, the study found.
Fatigue is the most common long COVID symptom and is seen in patients even after 100 days of infection.
Is vaccination helpful?
This can spark a debate. While on one hand experts are divided over the efficiency of COVID vaccination against the emerging variants, experts do not have a clear answer on how it would safeguard a person against long COVID effects.
Vaccines are helpful in reducing the severity of the infection.
"There is strong and consistent evidence that vaccination protects against long COVID. However, recurrent infections with Omicron (and any future variants) suggest we need a “vaccine plus” approach while we wait for universal, sterilizing vaccines," says the report.