Understanding Long COVID and its effects

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Last Updated17/05/2022

The Lancet’s publication has provided insight for those calling for greater attention to Long COVID, establishing that burden of symptomatic sequelae is still high even two years after COVID.
Pandemic survivors had lower health status than the general population at two years.

A considerable proportion of people who have recovered from COVID-19 continue to face long-term effects on multiple organs and systems.
It has been noticed in people who did not exhibit any symptoms during their infection stage.
Post-COVID Syndrome, by consensus, is defined as signs and symptoms that develop during or after an infection consistent with COVID-19 which continue for more than 12 weeks and are not explained by alternative diagnosis.
Post-COVID defines symptoms: persist four weeks after infection
Long COVID symptoms: 12 weeks past a COVID-19 infection.
Effects: skin rash, sleep difficulties, fatigue or muscle weakness, hair loss, joint pain, palpitations, dizziness, cough, headache, sore throat, chest pain, smell and taste disorders, anxiety disorders and mobility issues.

Study has described Long COVID for two years.
It characterises evolution of health outcomes in hospital survivors with different initial disease severity throughout the two years after an acute COVID-19 infection.
The proportion of individuals with at least one sequelae symptom decreased from 68% at six months to 55% at two years.
The proportion of participants reporting symptoms of anxiety or depression dropped from 23% at six months to 12% at two years.
89 % of those who had been hospitalised for COVID had returned to their regular work at the end of two years.
Long COVID symptoms were related to decreased health-related quality of life and exercise capacity, psychological abnormality, and increased use of health care after discharge.
COVID-19 survivors still had symptoms and problems with pain or discomfort, as well as anxiety or depression.
Survivors who had received higher-level respiratory support during hospitalisation continued to have lung issues.
Findings indicate that there is urgent need to explore the pathogenesis of Long COVID and develop effective interventions to reduce the risk of such side effects.

Both Post COVID and Long COVID had fewer numbers in India.
GOI developed National Comprehensive Guidelines for the management of post-COVID sequelae.
It sets out detailed techniques to treat post-COVID complications affecting cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, nephrological, neurological and respiratory systems.
Several hospitals set up COVID wards to treat persons who complained about post-COVID symptoms. January 2022: Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, reported that people infected in second wave of COVID have experienced four times more Long COVID conditions than those from the first wave.
According to doctors, people who contracted virus in second wave showed multiple symptoms including high-grade fever, diarrhoea and severe lung infection.
Even after a year, recovery had been very difficult, with acute weakness and fatigue plaguing their everyday lives.

Small proportion of people will continue to have symptoms, beyond four weeks, and beyond 12 weeks. Broader principles of immunology are universal principles and they work in same way in any part of the world.
This was not the same for Long COVID, because these were health conditions, and these need not necessarily be the same across the world.

Prelims take away