Researchers from Geneva have identified some persistent COVID-19 symptoms which don’t heal even after six weeks in patients. They are observed in patients without having any underlying medical condition or risk factor.
Ever since this virus has first appeared, it has an unpredictable role as there is no way to determine its symptoms or outcomes. During all these months, there are only a few characteristic symptoms that are recorded in the majority of patients. Still, many of them experience an unusual onset of COVID-19 symptoms which take a long period to vanish.
Health experts have come up with the term ‘Long Covid’ to define these unusual symptoms which take many weeks after the infection to go away.
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To understand how the COVID-19 symptom progress and heal, a research team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) the General Health Directorate of the State of Geneva, and the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG) and worked together. This team analyzed more than 700 Covid patients who didn’t experience extreme complications or were hospitalized.
After six weeks of being diagnosed with the virus, 33% of these patients still experience a number of Covid symptoms such as loss of smell, loss of taste, cough, fatigue, or difficulty breathing.
The complete findings are published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
This confirmation of long Covid urges for improving communication between the patient and a physician. Although the data on coronavirus has explained so much about it, the virus is still not completely understood and there are many dark areas with unknown outcomes of Covid-19.
These questions on understanding coronavirus emerged as this pandemic began in March. As this is the first time that coronavirus has emerged, there was absolutely no information available on it. All the precautionary measures were based on similar pandemics from the past i.e. SARS, MERS, and Spanish Flu pandemic.
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In this current study, 669 people of the average age of 43 years were investigated. Nearly 60% of them were women and 25% belonged to the healthcare profession. 69% of these patients were free from any risky underlying factor which could make Covid outcomes worse.
All of them continued to experience COVID-19 symptoms, after six years of being diagnosed. 14% of them experienced fatigue, 9% experienced breathing problems, loss of smell, and loss of taste. Nearly 6% reported having a cough and only 3% experienced pains especially a headache.
In addition to the natural stress associated with Covid-19, most of them were worried about the complete recovery. It is normal to worry about symptoms that don’t vanish even if the infection gradually slows down. Many people were also worried about never recovering from these symptoms. And no one can address these concerns better than medics and healthcare workers who are attending these patients directly.
The presence of these COVID-19 symptoms needs recognition from health experts to save patients from excessive stress and worry related to long covid. It means not only the public and healthcare staff but everyone including employers, employees, and the whole society in general should be educated on Covid management.
