Tag: long COVID

Sweden

Radio | New report fails to address Covid impacts for children

Published March 7, 2024

Published by: Radio Sweden
Published on: March 7, 2024

A Public Health Agency investigation into the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on children’s health is facing criticism, as it does not address how Covid infections directly affected children and their families.
Instead, the Swedish Covid Association says attention in the report has been focused on how school closures and other restrictions affected children’s well-being.
Social Affairs and Public Health Minister Jakob Forssmed tells Swedish Radio News there are valid reasons for having a wide-ranging investigation.

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cognitive decline

Des déclins cognitifs constatés après une infection à la COVID-19

Published March 7, 2024

Published by: Radio-Canada
Published on: March 7, 2024
By Mélanie Meloche-Holubowski

Scientific evidence about the long-term effects of COVID-19 continues to accumulate. Two new studies involving hundreds of thousands of people suggest that SARS-CoV-2 infections can cause cognitive decline.

Researchers at Imperial College, London recruited nearly 113,000 Britons previously infected with the COVID-19 virus for their study. These individuals engaged in various cognitive exercises to assess their memory and their faculties of concentration and attention. Their results were compared to those of people never infected.

The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, show that the coronavirus is believed to impair cognitive abilities and the intelligence quotient (IQ).

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long COVID

Even healthcare workers face difficulty accessing long-COVID care, review suggests

Published March 6, 2024

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: March 6, 2024
By Mary Van Beusekom

Healthcare workers (HCWs) with long-COVID symptoms reported that their physicians shrugged off their concerns and that they struggled to get the care they needed, a new systematic review suggests.

For the rapid review, published yesterday in PLOS One, researchers from the University of Aberdeen and Robert Gordon University in Scotland reviewed 30 studies published from December 2019 to December 2022 to evaluate the effects of long COVID on HCW health, working life, personal circumstances, and use of healthcare resources. Two of the studies provided qualitative evidence, and 28 survey studies offered quantitative evidence.

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advocacy

Canadian Covid Society launches to address long-term effects, prevent further illness

Published March 6, 2024

Published by: CityNews / The Canadian Press
Published on: March 6, 2024
By Nicole Ireland

A national non-profit group called the Canadian Covid Society launched on Wednesday, with co-founders saying the organization is needed as public health agencies have pulled back on COVID-19 prevention measures and awareness campaigns.

“I feel in some ways we’re filling a gap where public health has left open,” Dr. Joe Vipond, one of the society’s five co-founders, said at a news conference.

In his home province of Alberta, “there’s basically no mention of COVID. There’s no mention of long COVID. It’s really fallen off the radar for a lot of public health at this point,” said Vipond, who is an emergency physician in Calgary.

“While the acute phase of the pandemic has ended, the virus continues to cause significant chronic illness,” the Canadian Covid Society’s website says.

COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death across Canada in 2022, behind heart disease and cancer, it says.

“It still continues to be a stressor on our health system up to this present day. It is contributing to poor health and excess deaths,” said Dr. Kashif Pirzada, another co-founder of the society.

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United Kingdom

Long Covid: Health staff go to court for compensation

Published March 6, 2024

Published by: BBC
Published on: March 6, 2024
By Catherine Burns

Nearly 70 healthcare workers with long Covid have taken their fight to the High Court to try to sue the NHS and other employers for compensation.

The staff, from England and Wales, believe they first caught Covid at work during the pandemic and say they were not properly protected from the virus.

Many of them say they are left with life-changing disabilities and are likely to lose income as a result.

The Department of Health said “there are lessons to be learnt” from Covid.

The group believe they were not provided with adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) at work, which includes eye protection, gloves, gowns and aprons.

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long COVID

I’m back, long COVID never went away and world is still a mess

Published March 6, 2024

Published by: Toronto Star
Published on: March 6, 2024
By Heather Mallick

Star readers are the best and my Star readers are even better, a finer grind of bean. While I was off work recently recovering from long COVID, plus a medication error, I heard from many concerned subscribers.

Was I ill? On a lavish vacation? Was I returning? In the nicest possible way, I suspect they were checking if I were deceased, their emails being that little kick you give to possible roadkill. Is that inert coyote going to make it? Well, it looks pretty squished. Has anyone phoned her house?

Readers suggested cures, mainly vitamins and turmeric, but one recommended a device, electric copper rods that look like curling irons. I’m supposed to hold them in my hands, usually after dinner, the reader said. You can sit and watch the news, gently self-electrocuting.

Three and a half million Canadians have long COVID symptoms, but you hardly hear from them or about them, mainly because they work from home, if they work at all. Some symptoms are non-stop exhaustion, breathing difficulty, pain, headaches, insomnia, dizziness. Medical science offers no treatment yet.

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Low iron levels resulting from infection could be key trigger of long COVID

A man sitting on a couch holding his head in his hands. Photo by Malachi Cowie / Unsplash.

long COVID

Low iron levels resulting from infection could be key trigger of long COVID

Published March 4, 2024

Published by: University of Cambridge
Published on: March 4, 2024

Problems with iron levels in the blood and the body’s ability to regulate this important nutrient as a result of SARS-CoV-2 infection could be a key trigger for long COVID, new research has discovered.

The discovery not only points to possible ways to prevent or treat the condition, but could help explain why symptoms similar to those of long COVID are also commonly seen in a number of post-viral conditions and chronic inflammation.

Although estimates are highly variable, as many as three in 10 people infected with SARS-CoV-2 could go on to develop long COVID, with symptoms including fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle aches and problems with memory and concentration (‘brain fog’). An estimated 1.9 million people in the UK alone were experiencing self-reported long COVID as of March 2023, according to the Office of National Statistics.

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long COVID

Atteinte de la COVID longue, une Néo-Écossaise désire que la maladie soit mieux reconnue

Published March 3, 2024

Published by: Radio-Canada
Published on: March 3, 2024

Two months after contracting COVID-19, Beth Wood found that she had trouble concentrating and was easily irritated and always tired. While it is among the 3.5 million Canadians with long COVID, according to Statistics Canada, access to disability benefits remains complex.

Beth Wood has been a social worker for 40 years. Although the boss of the community centre where she works in Halifax offered her support to resume her work, she feels that she is constantly swimming against the current.

She is now considering applying for a long-term disability benefit, but she is concerned that the road is long.

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long COVID

De l’espoir pour les femmes atteintes de syndromes de fatigue chronique

Published March 3, 2024

Published by: La Presse
Published on: March 3, 2024
By Mathieu Perreault

Research into long COVID may benefit other fatigue syndromes that follow infections. These difficult to diagnose and treat disorders affect twice as many women as men. A symbol of sexism in medicine?

“When we started talking about long COVID at the end of 2020, patients told me how close it was to their symptoms,” says Durand, epidemiologist from the Université de Montréal who studied a cohort of patients with long COVID. “These are patients who for years had chronic fatigue, mental fog, abnormally low resistance to exertion. Doctors often told them it was in their heads. These are symptoms that are called “non-specific.” There are no diagnostic tests.”

These problems are often grouped under the term “acute post-infection syndrome.” “The idea is that there are things that have changed with the infection, and there are still sequelae that we can’t measure right now,” says Durand. “Since many people have had COVID-19, there are many cases of long COVID. We are talking about 15% of COVID-19 cases. So there’s a lot of funding for long COVID.”

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Nova Scotia

Nova Scotians with long-term COVID symptoms face disability claim hurdles

Published March 3, 2024

Published by: CBC News
Published on: March 3, 2024

Two months after contracting COVID-19 and recovering, Beth Wood noticed that she was having trouble concentrating, getting winded easily and feeling unusually tired.

Like three and a half million other Canadians, according to Statistics Canada, Halifax’s Wood has long-term COVID symptoms.

Wood has worked as a community social worker for four decades.

She told CBC Radio’s Information Morning Nova Scotia, her employer has been helping her try to get back up to speed at work. But it hasn’t been successful and she is now considering taking long-term disability.

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long COVID

Radio | Ontario Today – February 29, 2024: Is there hope for people living with long covid? Where have you turned for help?

Published February 29, 2024

Published by: CBC News
Published on: February 29, 2024

Dr. Angela Cheung heads up a network of scientists and health practitioners studying long covid. She’s also a senior physician-scientist at University Health Network in…

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cognitive issues

Long covid may cause cognitive decline of about six IQ points, study finds

Published February 29, 2024

Published by: The Washington Post
Published on: February 29, 2024
By Victoria Bisset

It’s more than four years since the first cases of covid-19 were identified — but many of its longer-term effects, including for those living with long covid, remain unclear.

Now, a new study has some worrying findings that suggest covid may have longer-term effects on cognition and memory — and that these lead to measurable differences in cognitive performance.

The study, published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that participants who recovered from covid symptoms had a cognitive deficit equivalent to three IQ points compared with those who were never infected, while participants suffering from unresolved covid symptoms lasting 12 weeks or more experienced a loss equivalent to six IQ points.

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cognitive issues

Mounting research shows that COVID-19 leaves its mark on the brain, including with significant drops in IQ scores

Published February 28, 2024

Published by: The Conversation
Published on: February 28, 2024
By Ziyad Al-Aly

From the very early days of the pandemic, brain fog emerged as a significant health condition that many experience after COVID-19.

Brain fog is a colloquial term that describes a state of mental sluggishness or lack of clarity and haziness that makes it difficult to concentrate, remember things and think clearly.

Fast-forward four years and there is now abundant evidence that being infected with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – can affect brain health in many ways.

In addition to brain fog, COVID-19 can lead to an array of problems, including headaches, seizure disorders, strokes, sleep problems, and tingling and paralysis of the nerves, as well as several mental health disorders.

A large and growing body of evidence amassed throughout the pandemic details the many ways that COVID-19 leaves an indelible mark on the brain. But the specific pathways by which the virus does so are still being elucidated, and curative treatments are nonexistent.

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long COVID

Long COVID Doesn’t Always Look Like You Think It Does

Published February 27, 2024

Published by: Time
Published on: February 27, 2024
By Jamie Ducharme

In the spring of 2023, after her third case of COVID-19, Jennifer Robertson started to feel strange. Her heart raced all day long and she could barely sleep at night. She had dizzy spells. She felt pins and needles in her arm, she says, a “buzzing feeling” in her foot, and pain in her legs and lymph nodes. She broke out in a rash. She smelled “phantom” cigarette smoke, even when none was in the air.

Robertson, 48, had a feeling COVID-19 might have somehow been the trigger. She knew about Long COVID, the name for chronic symptoms following an infection, because her 11-year-old son has it. But “he didn’t have anything like this,” she says. “His set of symptoms are totally different,” involving spiking fevers and vocal and motor tics. Her own experience was so different from her son’s, it was hard to believe the same condition could be to blame. “I just thought, ‘It’s really coincidental that I never got well, and now I’m getting worse,’” she says.

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long COVID

Millions of Americans suffer from long COVID. Why do treatments remain out of reach?

Published February 26, 2024

Published by: USA Today
Published on: February 26, 2024
By Eduardo Cuevas, Karen Weintraub

More than a year after catching COVID-19, Sawyer Blatz still can’t practice his weekly rituals: running for miles in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park or biking around his adopted hometown.

In many ways, the pandemic isn’t over for the 27-year-old and millions of other Americans. It may never be.

They have long COVID, a condition characterized by any combination of 200 different lingering symptoms, some of which, like loss of taste and smell are familiar from initial infections and some totally alien, like the utter exhaustion that makes it impossible for Blatz to walk much more than a block.

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long COVID

Solving the puzzle of Long Covid

Published February 22, 2024

Published by: Science
Published on: February 22, 2024
By Ziyad Al-Aly, Eric Topol

Preventing infections and reinfections is the best way to prevent Long Covid and should remain the foundation of public health policy. A greater commitment to nonpharmaceutical interventions, which include masking, especially in high-risk settings, and improved air quality through filtration and ventilation, are requisite. Updating building codes to require mitigation against airborne pathogens and ensure safer indoor air should be treated with the same seriousness afforded to mitigation of risks from earthquakes and other natural hazards. Reducing the risk of serious outcomes after COVID-19 and some prevention of Long Covid can be attained with vaccination of a wider spectrum of the population.

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long COVID

Irish scientists discover why people with long Covid can suffer ‘brain fog’

Published February 22, 2024

Published by: The Irish Times
Published on: February 22, 2024
By Kevin O'Sullivan

The reason why people with long Covid can suffer from “brain fog” has been discovered by Irish scientists.

The breakthrough has profound importance for the understanding of brain fog and cognitive decline seen in some patients with the condition, according researchers at Trinity College Dublin.

It brings the possibility of new treatments for the condition, but also for other neurodegenerative illnesses such as multiple sclerosis (MS), they said.

The research, published in Nature Neuroscience on Thursday, shows disruption to the integrity of blood vessels in the brains of patients suffering from long Covid and brain fog.

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long COVID

Long Covid ‘brain fog’ may be due to leaky blood-brain barrier, study finds

Published February 22, 2024

Published by: The Guardian
Published on: February 22, 2024
By Nicola Davis

From forgetfulness to difficulties concentrating, many people who have long Covid experience “brain fog”. Now researchers say the symptom could be down to the blood-brain barrier becoming leaky.

The barrier controls which substances or materials enter and exit the brain. “It’s all about regulating a balance of material in blood compared to brain,” said Prof Matthew Campbell, co-author of the research at Trinity College Dublin.

“If that is off balance then it can drive changes in neural function and if this happens in brain regions that allow for memory consolidation/storage then it can wreak havoc.”

Writing in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Campbell and colleagues report how they analysed serum and plasma samples from 76 patients who were hospitalised with Covid in March or April 2020, as well 25 people before the pandemic.

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