Millions of COVID-19 survivors worldwide — even those who had mild illness — are reporting long-term symptoms months later, including brain fog, persistent exhaustion, and lung, heart or kidney damage.
Why it matters: For too long, these long-haulers, as they call themselves, have not been taken seriously enough by providers and researchers, some doctors tell Axios, adding that there's an urgent need for dedicated research in order to treat patients with lingering symptoms.
Doctors started to realize long COVID was a problem last spring, and yet "there's little to show for it," says cardiologist Eric Topol, founder and director of Scripps Research Translational Institute
What's happening: Many providers and health care systems initially dismissed the symptoms as related to something else, but growing evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 as the culprit in many cases....
- A study published in The Lancet looked at people who had severe COVID-19 illness in China and found that six months later, 75% continued to experience at least one symptom.
- A preprint study in medRxiv, not yet peer reviewed, surveyed 3,762 self-described long-haulers from 56 countries, with symptoms after the onset of what was likely COVID-19. Six months after first becoming sick, almost half were unable to work full time and 22% weren't working at