MANILA, Philippines – Millions of people around the world are thought to suffer from prolonged COVID, but little is known about the disease: studies have recently proposed several theories about its cause.
An estimated 10 to 20 percent of other people who contract coronavirus experience prolonged COVID symptoms (peak tiredness, shortness of breath, and lack of intellectual clarity called brain fog) months after recovering from the illness.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), based in the U. S. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration estimates that about 145 million people worldwide had at least one such symptom in 2020 and 2021.
In Europe alone, another 17 million people experienced a prolonged COVID symptom at least three months after infection this period, according to the IHME model for the World Health Organization (WHO) published earlier this month.
These millions of others “cannot continue to suffer in silence,” said WHO Europe director Hans Kluge, calling on the world to act temporarily to be more informed about the disease.
The researchers were quick to catch up, but the breadth and inconsistency of symptoms confused things.
So far, more than two hundred other symptoms have been attributed to prolonged COVID, according to a University College London study.
“There are no explicit symptoms in prolonged COVID, but it has certain characteristics that fluctuate,” said Olivier Robineau, coordinator of prolonged COVID at France’s emerging infectious disease studies agency.
“Fatigue keeps receding,” he told AFP, while symptoms “seem to get worse after intellectual or physical exertion, and are less common over time. “
One thing we do know is that other people who have had more severe initial cases, in addition to needing to be hospitalized, are more likely to have prolonged COVID, according to IHME.
Researchers have followed several leads to determine exactly what may be causing the disease.
A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases in September found that the notorious spike protein of COVID, the key that allows the virus to enter the body’s cells, is still found in patients a year after infection.
This suggests that viral reservoirs would possibly persist in some people, potentially causing inflammation that can also lead to long-lasting symptoms similar to those of COVID-19, the researchers said.
If they’re right, a check may be developed to identify the spike, which could lead to one of the wonderful and elusive goals of prolonged COVID studies: a transparent way to diagnose the disease.
However, its effects have been demonstrated through other studies and several other reasons have been proposed.
One important theory is that tissue damaged by severe cases of COVID triggers a lasting disruption of the immune system.
Another suggests that the initial infection causes small blood clots, which may be linked to prolonged COVID symptoms.
However, for those hypotheses, the knowledge is not yet very robust,” Robineau said.
It is very likely that “we will not find a single reason for the long COVID,” he added.
“The causes would possibly not be exclusive. They can be connected or even succeed each other in the same individual, or be others in other individuals.
A to treat the disease also remains elusive.
For more than a year, Paris’ Hôtel-Dieu Hospital has been a half-day cure for long-term COVID patients.
“They know an infectious disease specialist, a psychiatrist, then a sports rehabilitation doctor,” says Brigitte Ranque, who directs the CASPER protocol.
“Based on the team’s experience, most symptoms can be attributed to somatic syndromes,” he said. This is an organization of chronic disorders such as chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia that have no known cause.
Cognitive behavioral therapy, a mental technique used for those syndromes, is being used to treat prolonged COVID along with supervised physical activity, Ranque said.
“Patients come back 3 months later. Most of them are better off. More than a part say they have recovered,” he told AFP.
“But about 15 percent didn’t do it at all. “
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