2023-10-09 11:00:00
More than three and a half years following the start of the Covid-19 pandemic linked to the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus, the term long Covid has been the subject of numerous press articles and scientific studies. And it even shed light on a phenomenon observed by many but not yet very well documented in the scientific literature: the rhume long !
In a new study, published on October 6 in the journal eClinicalMedicine (Source 1), a team of researchers from Queen Mary University of London compared what they call post-acute following-effects, including the persistent symptoms of Covid-19, to those of other respiratory infections.
“This study is important because not only does it reiterate the huge impact that Covid-19 can have (in the long term), but it also highlights that people with other respiratory infections may also struggle to recover from it. acute episode”, commented Giulia Vivaldi, first author of the study, statistician and epidemiologist at Queen Mary University of London, cited by CNN (Source 2).
Long Covid, long cold: many symptoms in common
The study included 10,171 participants, including 12.9% with SARS-CoV-2 (or Covid-19) infection, and 4.6% with acute respiratory infection due to another virus. . 16 long-term symptoms, generally associated with long Covid, were included.
Fatigue, shortness of breath, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, memory problems, stomach aches, persistent cough and sleep problems were among the persistent symptoms following Covid-19 as well as following another acute respiratory infection. Only brain fog seems to be specific to long Covid.
“Acute respiratory infections resulting or not from Covdi-19 are associated with a wide range of symptoms more than 4 weeks following acute infection. Research on post-acute following-effects [de ces infections] expected to extend to pathogens other than Sars-CoV-2”, the researchers concluded.
A phenomenon that is not new
Asked by the site Science Media CentreDr David Strain, associate professor and honorary consultant at the University of Exeter Medical School in the United Kingdom, pointed out that at the beginning of the 20th century, the pandemic of Spanish flu left many people with persistent symptoms, notably encephalitis lethargica which took decades to treat. “Today in the UK there are around 280,000 people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome), many of whom report a rather mild initial viral illness as the trigger”, added the specialist.
Patient groups to alert the medical community
As Giulia Vivaldi points out to CNN, in the case of long Covid, it took a major mobilization of patients with long Covid for this subject to come to the table of both health authorities and researchers. In France, it is notably the collective After D20 who raised awareness on the subject, first via social networks, before coming together in a national association.
“In honor of these patients, we must ensure that we do not lose the momentum we have in long-term Covid research and take this opportunity to strengthen our understanding and knowledge post-infectious syndromes more generally”, estimated Giuilia Vivaldi.
While calling not to minimize the disability of people suffering from long Covid, compared here to the expression “long cold”, Dr Peter Openshaw, professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London, told Science Media Centre that people should “more”expect a slow return to normal [plutôt que de] expect to immediately return to full activities immediately following an acute respiratory infection, regardless of the cause”.
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