Concerns are growing over a long period of “Covid” disease, as experts have found a link between a mysterious chronic disease and the deadly Corona virus.
Experts are currently researching the link between suffering from a long “Covid” disease, and being diagnosed with a chronic disease known as encephalomyelitis. The disease, known as chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS, is a long-term condition whose most common symptom is extreme fatigue. Early research suggests that more than half of people diagnosed with long-term COVID-19 might meet the criteria for being considered chronic fatigued.
When infected with COVID-19, most people recover within a few weeks.
However, in some cases, people developed symptoms of “Covid” months following the infection cleared. This is known as ‘prolonged covid’.
As COVID cases continue to rise around the world, people with ME/CFS have issued dire warnings regarding the debilitating condition.
Months following Valerie Murray was diagnosed with the disease, she struggled with simple tasks like opening the refrigerator. She also suffered from a chronic cough and a rapid heartbeat, which made it difficult for her to sleep at night.
Initially, several doctors she consulted dismissed her symptoms as related to anxiety, saying “it was all in her head,” the Montreal Gazette reports.
However, once all other options were ruled out, a doctor at the Montreal Heart Institute told her, “What I’m regarding to tell you is important: It’s not in your head. Your symptoms are caused by a disease called encephalomyelitis.”
Another patient, Claudine Prudhomme, who has had the condition for years, said that even a simple task like going to a store can make her feel like running a marathon.
ME/CFS can affect the patient’s musculoskeletal, nervous and immune systems, with symptoms most commonly described as ‘post-exercise malaise’.
This refers to a worsening of symptoms, or the emergence of new symptoms following the patient has exerted minimal physical or mental stress.
Long-term Covid can cause a variety of different health problems, with a recent study with severe infections in the brain.
The new study, published in Nature Communications, found that the virus can lead to severe inflammation of the brain, injuries consistent with reduced blood flow or oxygen to the brain, including nerve cell damage, death, and even minor bleeding in the brain.
Surprisingly, these effects were present in participants who were not severely ill from Covid.
These findings are considered the “first comprehensive neuroscience assessment” associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in a primate model.
The researchers explained that the results are consistent with autopsy studies of people who died from the Corona virus.
“Because the subjects did not have significant respiratory symptoms, no one expected them to have the severity of disease that we found in the brain,” said Tracey Fisher, a principal investigator at the Tulane National Primate Research Center. “But the results were distinct, profound, and undeniably the result of infection.”
