Although there’s a lack of consensus on what to call it—long Covid, chronic Covid syndrome, post-Covid-19 syndrome or long-hauler Covid-19—it’s now widely accepted that some people are experiencing lingering post-viral symptoms after being infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. These symptoms include debilitating fatigue, breathing difficulties, brain fog, aches and pains and many more.
In a recent review of nearly 48,000 patients between 17 and 87 years old, 80 percent of those who had Covid developed one or more symptoms lasting beyond three weeks, the most common ones being fatigue, headache, attention problems, hair loss and shortness of breath.1
Another study reported symptoms that persisted for at least three months in patients with both mild and severe Covid-19.2
Comparisons are being drawn to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). In, Dr Charles Shepherd, trustee and medical adviser to the ME Association, points out the“important clinical and pathological overlaps between long Covid and ME/CFS” and that“a wide range of viral infections, including coronavirus infections, are capable of triggering a post viral fatigue syndrome and subsequent ME/CFS.”
