London, Europe Brief News – A recent study reports approximately 200 million individuals currently experience or have previously experienced long-term, health-related consequences of COVID-19, which in itself is a significant burden on individuals, families, communities and healthcare systems.
The same study, which was a meta-analysis of many other research papers, showed that a higher percentage of women reported long COVID symptoms than men (49 percent vs 37 percent, respectively) and that pre-existing asthma was a predisposing factor for lingering symptoms.
Risk factors identified in the studies that were not meta-analysed included severe initial illness, older age, and underlying conditions such as obesity and hypothyroidism.
What makes long COVID particularly difficult to diagnose and manage is that there are more than 200 reported symptoms linked to it, yet many will need to be investigated for other causes first before attributing them to long COVID.
As many countries move to a “living with COVID” strategy, it is important to remember that COVID-19 can be a debilitating illness for many people during the acute phase and trying to “work through it” may not be the best approach.
The fact that COVID affects people in different ways has always been one of the challenges facing those who are responsible for public health messaging about the disease. Some people will have mild or even no symptoms, others will have a wide array of significant symptoms. It is important to remember that “living with COVID” does not mean ignoring it, and that even if you have mild symptoms, resting during the acute phase will help in your recovery.
As of July 29, 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) has put the confirmed cases of COVID-19 at more than half a billion and the number of COVID-related deaths at over 6.3 million.
