12 Key Symptoms of Long Covid Identified by Study – Check Full List

A team of US researchers have identified 12 key symptoms of the Long Covid condition, which persist more than 30 days after a Covid-19 infection. With more than 650 million people around the world infected with SARS-CoV-2, prolonged covid represents a major public health problem affecting quality of life, income and healthcare costs. To better understand the prevalence and severity of symptoms, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched Researching Covid to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER-Adult). Published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study examined 37 symptoms in multiple areas and organs of the body.

The researchers identified 12 symptoms that most differentiate people with and without prolonged covid: post-exertional malaise (worsening of symptoms after even minor physical or mental exertion), fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, gastrointestinal symptoms, heart palpitations, problems with sexual desire or ability, loss of smell or taste, thirst, chronic cough, chest pain, and abnormal movements.

The findings include a new scoring system for long-term Covid to help clinicians and researchers better define it and investigate treatments for patients. “Now that we can identify people with long-term COVID, we can start to do deeper studies to understand the biological mechanisms at play,” said corresponding author Andrea Foulkes, a RECOVER principal investigator and professor at Harvard Medical School. .

“One of the big learnings from this study is the heterogeneity of long covid: long covid is not just a syndrome, it’s a syndrome of syndromes. Understanding this idea is a really important step in further research and ultimately delivering interventions.” informed,” he said. aggregate.

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The study began enrolling participants in October 2021. The researchers analyzed the results of a symptom survey distributed to 85 hospitals, health centers, and community organizations in 33 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. More than 9,500 people completed the survey, including uninfected adults and people who had been infected with Covid-19 for six months. The survey, developed in collaboration with physicians and patient advocates, included 37 different symptoms and corresponding measures of severity.

The results also suggest that reinfections, infection with a pre-Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant, and non-vaccination are associated with increased frequency and severity of long-term covid, but the authors stress that continued research is necessary.