Many long-term COVID patients adapt to low chances of recovery as the world moves forward

Reuters

Thu Nov 14, 2024 12:05 Last updated: Thu Nov 14, 2024 12:10

A man wearing a protective mask walks past an illustration of a virus outside a regional science center, as the city and surrounding areas face local restrictions in a bid to prevent a local lockdown be imposed on the region, amid the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), in Oldham, Britain, August 3, 2020. Photo: Reuters/File

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There are certain phrases that Wachuka Gichohi struggles to hear after enduring four years of living with long COVID, marked by debilitating fatigue, pain, panic attacks and other symptoms so severe she feared die overnight.

Among them are usually innocuous statements such as “Feel better soon” or “I wish you a speedy recovery,” the Kenyan businesswoman said, shaking her head.

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Gichohi, 41, knows such phrases are well-intentioned. “I think we have to accept, for me, it’s not going to happen.”

Recent scientific studies shed new light on the experience of millions of patients like Gichohi. They suggest that the longer a person is ill, the lower their chances of full recovery.

The best window for recovery is during the first six months after contracting COVID-19, with better chances for people whose initial illness was less severe, as well as those who are vaccinated, Kingdom researchers have found -United and United States. People whose symptoms last between six months and two years are less likely to make a full recovery.

For patients who have been struggling for more than two years, the chances of a full recovery “will be very slim”, said Manoj Sivan, professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Leeds and one of the authors of the published findings. in The Lancet.

Sivan said this should be called “persistent long COVID” and understood as chronic diseases, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or fibromyalgia, which may be features of long COVID or risk factors for this one.

CAUTION DECLINED

Long COVID, defined as symptoms persisting for three months or more after initial infection, involves a constellation of symptoms ranging from extreme fatigue and brain fog to shortness of breath and joint pain.

It can range from mild to completely disabling, and there are no proven diagnostic tests or treatments, although scientists have advanced theories about who is at risk and possible causes.

A British study suggests that almost a third of people reporting symptoms after 12 weeks recovered after 12 months. Others, particularly among hospitalized patients, have much lower recovery rates.

In a study conducted by the UK’s Office for National Statistics, two million people self-reported long COVID symptoms last March. About 700,000 people, or 30.6%, reported first experiencing symptoms at least three years ago.

Globally, accepted estimates suggest that between 65 million and 200 million people suffer from long COVID. That could mean between 19.5 million and 60 million people will face years of impairment, according to initial estimates, Sivan said.

The United States and some countries like Germany continue to fund long-term COVID research.

But more than two dozen experts, patient advocates and pharmaceutical executives told Reuters that money and attention to the disease was declining in other wealthy countries that traditionally fund studies to large scale. In low- and middle-income countries, this has never existed.

“The focus has shifted,” said Amitava Banerjee, a professor at University College London who is co-leading a large trial of repurposed drugs and rehabilitation programs.

He says long COVID should be considered a chronic illness that can be treated to improve patients’ lives rather than cured, like heart disease or arthritis.

“DEEPLY HANDICAPING”

Leticia Soares, 39, from northeastern Brazil, was infected in 2020 and has struggled with severe fatigue and chronic pain ever since. On a good day, she spends five hours out of bed.

When she can work, Soares is a co-lead and researcher at the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, an advocacy group involved in a review of the lengthy COVID evidence published recently in Nature.

Soares said she believes recovery rarely happens beyond 12 months. Some patients may find that their symptoms subside, only to return, a kind of remission that can be mistaken for recovery, she said.

“It’s so debilitating and isolating. You spend every minute wondering, ‘Will I get worse after this?'” she said of her own experience.

Soares takes antihistamines and other commonly available treatments to cope with daily life. Four long-time COVID doctors in different countries said they were prescribing such drugs, which are known to be safe. Some evidence suggests they help.

Others have less success with traditional medicine.

Gichohi’s disease was ruled out by her doctor, and she turned to a functional medicine practitioner, who focused on more holistic treatments.

She left her bustling hometown of Nairobi to settle in a small town near Mount Kenya, monitoring her activity levels to avoid fatigue and receiving acupuncture and trauma therapy.

She tried the drug treatment naltrexone, which shows evidence of benefit for prolonged COVID symptoms, and the controversial antiparasitic drug ivermectin, which didn’t help, but she says she did. it helped.

She said it was important to transition from “continuing recovery” to living in her new reality.

A piecemeal treatment approach is to be expected as research progresses, and perhaps in the longer term, said Anita Jain, a longtime COVID expert at the World Health Organization.

Meanwhile, long-haul carriers face a new challenge with each increase in COVID cases. A handful of studies have suggested that reinfection can exacerbate existing long COVID.

Shannon Turner, a 39-year-old cabaret singer from Philadelphia, contracted COVID in late March or early April 2020.

She was already living with psoriatic arthritis and antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, autoimmune diseases for which she regularly took steroids and immunotherapy. Such conditions may increase the risk of developing long COVID, researchers say.

Last summer, Turner contracted COVID again. Again, she is extraordinarily tired and uses a walker to get around.

Turner is determined to continue her music career despite persistent pain, dizziness and a racing heart that regularly lands her in the hospital.

“I don’t want to live my life in bed,” she said.