Chronic COVID-19: why coronavirus symptoms can last for months

Several recoveries from COVID-19 say they continued to suffer from the symptoms of the virus weeks and months after the first infection. This is one of the mysteries of the new virus. Writes about it Euro News.

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Now these people are looking for help on the Internet from others experiencing similar complications due to coronavirus, which they fear may cause them chronic health problems.

“We feel completely useless,” says entrepreneur Genevieve Danesi, 36, from Antibes, France, who claims doctors have repeatedly failed to take her seriously when she seeks help for her symptoms.

It wasn't until a month after these symptoms first appeared that she was admitted to the hospital for a CT scan, which showed she likely had COVID-19. Even after the first month, she continued to have symptoms - inability to stand for more than five minutes, rapid heart rate and dizziness.

Before the pandemic, Danezi was in excellent health. She went to the doctor once a year, was very active, worked twice a day and did not smoke.

Danezi complains that she was constantly told that since she was young and would not die, she should stay at home while her health continued to deteriorate.

“From the very beginning until the 70th day, it was like relapses and new symptoms. It was like Russian roulette every morning,” Danesi says. It wasn't until a doctor put her on oxygen therapy at home, months after her first symptoms appeared, that she started to feel better.

But she still needs to take aspirin daily to prevent her heart rate from rising to 120 beats per minute.

A study in Italy found that of the 143 patients with COVID-19 discharged from the hospital, more than 87% said they had at least one symptom that persisted after a negative virus test, most often it was fatigue and dyspnea.

Chronic COVID-19

“Different manifestations may have very different mechanisms,” said Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, meaning that even people with mild symptoms may have long-term tissue damage or an immune reaction that lasts almost like a syndrome.

“We know that there are a certain number of people who become infected with the virus, sometimes severely, sometimes with less severe symptoms and for whom they last for weeks,” said French Health Minister Olivier Veran.

On the subject: Scientist: asymptomatic COVID-19 does not exist, and coronavirus is a common seasonal disease

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said they were “concerned that there is growing evidence that a minority of people (but a significant minority) have long-term consequences, and this can be pretty debilitating.”

Hancock said the government has invested nearly 10 million pounds ($ 12,6 million) in studies of the long-term effects of coronavirus.

Veran said research is ongoing to find out if the long-lasting “inflammatory phase” of the virus can explain these symptoms, but said they are looking for ways to help patients.

However, at the moment they do not have many answers.

Claudia Uceda, a 24-year-old translator from Paris, was hospitalized with several asthma attacks after recovering from coronavirus.

She began breathing problems in March, but she was not hospitalized, even when her entire family was infected with the coronavirus.

In France, many people who claim that they still have symptoms of coronavirus infection first became infected with this disease in the midst of an epidemic, so they could not pass the test.

Natalie Neri says that she first discovered her fever, chest pain, shortness of breath and severe fatigue on March 24th.

The 51-year-old teacher of visual arts in Nimes said that her son and his girlfriend returned from Paris, after which they lost their sense of smell and taste.

Her symptoms lasted ten days, but she was not checked for the presence of coronavirus, because the tests were intended for hospitalized patients with coronavirus and health workers.

Throughout April, she still felt tired, but only at the beginning of May she again had temperature and chest pain. For several months she went through repeated cycles of new symptoms from severe chest pain to dizziness.

On the subject: Why the coronavirus vaccine has been developed for so long: a scientific explanation

“I was completely lost. My loved ones didn’t understand anything,” Nuri complains. She visited several doctors, some of whom did not take her symptoms seriously.

Now she switched to social networks. In France, the hashtag, translated as “after 20 days” or “after 100 days,” helps those who are still suffering from symptoms to find support. Such activity "showed me that I was not an isolated case, and other people had similar symptoms."

“I think this is one of the very difficult aspects: many people who feel long-term unwell have never been tested for coronavirus and have never been hospitalized,” said Altmann, from Imperial College London.

“However, there are many infections that cause certain diseases that can be chronic. For a subset of COVID-19 patients, this seems likely,” he added, and explained that several studies are currently being conducted to study these patients.

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