Stop Calling It ‘Long Covid’, Doctors Said… Because Illness Is ‘Indistinguishable’ From Other Post-Viral Syndromes

Doctors should stop using the term long Covid as it creates ‘unnecessary anxiety’ among patients and hinders recovery, research suggests.

Experts say the long-term symptoms some patients experience after an infection are no different from those caused by other viruses such as influenza.

Giving it this label “wrongly implies that there is something unique and exceptional about longer-term symptoms” after a bout of Covid, they say.

Often self-diagnosed, the term was coined for a range of symptoms following a Covid infection, which can persist for months or even years after the initial infection.

Around 1.9 million people in Britain are said to suffer from it, with the term encompassing everything from fatigue and shortness of breath to muscle and joint pain.

But Queensland Health researchers say it has only come to people’s attention because of the sheer numbers infected with Covid, and not because of the severity of long-term Covid symptoms or functional limitations.

Dr. John Gerrard, Queensland’s Chief Health Officer, said: ‘We believe it is time to stop using terms like ‘long Covid’.

‘They wrongly imply that there is something unique and exceptional about the longer-term symptoms associated with this virus.

“This terminology can cause unnecessary anxiety, and in some cases hypervigilance for longer symptoms that can hinder recovery.”

To understand the impact of a long bout of Covid-19 on the Australian state of Queensland, researchers surveyed 5,112 adults who had either Covid or flu between May 29 and June 25, 2022.

A year later, the participants were asked using a questionnaire about the persistent complaints and the degree of functional limitations.

Overall, 16 percent of all respondents reported persistent symptoms one year later, and 3.6 percent reported moderate to severe functional limitations in their daily activities.

The analysis found no evidence that those who had Covid were more likely to have moderate to severe functional impairment a year after their diagnosis than those with other viral infections, including flu.

Those who were more likely were usually 50 years or older, and those who showed symptoms of dizziness, muscle pain, shortness of breath, post-exertional malaise and fatigue.

The findings will be presented next month at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases conference in Barcelona.

Dr. Gerrard added: ‘In healthcare systems with highly vaccinated populations, Covid may have long seemed a distinct and serious disease due to the high numbers of Covid cases during the pandemic.

‘However, we found that the rates of persistent symptoms and functional impairment are indistinguishable from other post-viral diseases.

‘These findings underline the importance of comparing post-Covid outcomes with those after other respiratory infections, and of further research into post-viral syndromes.’

A&E consultant Dr Rob Galloway has previously raised concerns about the diagnoses of the condition.

Writing for the Mail, he said he was ‘frustrated by the number of patients being labeled with it, often for no convincing reason other than a collection of persistent symptoms’.

He wrote: ‘The implications of this label could be significant and impact on their mental wellbeing. Many of the people I have treated seem defeated by the assumption that they are unlikely to get better.

‘But also because it means that doctors are not allowed to look for other causes of their complaints.’

Dr. Janet Scott, a clinical lecturer in infectious diseases at the University of Glasgow, who was not involved in the research, said yesterday: ‘Many infections cause post-infection syndromes, and it may be that ‘long Covid’ is indeed not strikingly different from other post-infectious diseases. respiratory virus syndromes.

‘However, it is important not to minimize the enormous personal and economic impact that the long Covid-19 crisis is having on individuals.

‘The big difference with long Covid is the huge number of people infected with the same virus in a short time – which has allowed for more coordinated research in this area – which I hope will benefit all patients with post-infection syndromes.’