COVID long-haul carriers are calling attention to chronic illness

WWhen the first wave of coronavirus infection struck the United States in March 2020, it wasn’t just the tragedy of the acute crisis that made me stay up late, but we may soon face a second crisis. The idea was not. virus. I have just finished reporting and writing a book on chronic illnesses that are being contested for infectious disease-related syndromes. Medicine increasingly understands that infections can cause ongoing physical symptoms in some people, but medical institutions usually ignore their experience. Such conditions include myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME / CFS), so-called chronic Lyme disease.

Sure enough, later that spring, a cohort of patients infected with the coronavirus in March began to report that they were still not good. On online bulletin boards, patients began to share a long story about what is called COVID. A group of “long-distance carriers” have united to seek more attention and research on their plight.

This turmoil, coupled with the scope of the problem, had a clear impact on medical attitudes and made long COVID visible in the way ME / CFS had been struggling for decades. Within a few months, a long-standing COVID treatment center was created at a respected research hospital, such as the Post-COVID Care Center on Mount Sinai in New York City. In itself, this is a hopeful development. When I got sick in a similar situation 10 years ago, I was looking forward to such a place.

The impact on research is also dramatic, and many academic medical center scientists are working to understand the length of COVID, how to measure it, and how best to treat or manage it. Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist and director of the Yale School of Medicine, is one of them. “I used to focus primarily on acute infections, but as COVID grows longer, most of my lab is now focusing on COVID and other post-acute infection syndromes,” she said. Says. David Putrino, director of rehabilitation innovation at Mount Sinai Health Systems, said that “interesting researchers have begun to allocate increased resources to long-term COVIDs,” as funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health have “began to allocate increased resources to long-term COVIDs.” It’s skyrocketing. “

Even now, two years after the pandemic, long COVIDs are one of the greatest threats it poses. Early estimates suggest that 10-50% of unvaccinated people infected with the virus develop long-term symptoms. Vaccines can reduce the risk by as much as 50%, but according to Putrino, the vaccine does not eliminate the risk.

However, long COVIDs were rarely discussed in the public health message between delta and omicron waves. Authorities focused on acute serious illness and death, ignoring the debilitating and life-changing long-term effects of the virus on so many people. There are even fewer conversations about our social responsibility to the growing generation of sick people. Most are between the ages of 30 and 50.

This lack of concern is even more surprising given that we have little understanding of the condition, including the cause. Some theories suggest that the virus causes inflammation or autoimmune diseases that are widespread, while others suggest that the virus itself may persist in tissues within the body. What we know is that millions of people seek treatment for an astonishing set of symptoms, including fatigue, fog in the brain, heartbeat, shortness of breath, and pain. The task of treating all these patients is to uncover some of the permanent weaknesses of the drug.

Modern medicine is based on replicability. Since the advent of pathogen theory in the 19th century, as Harvard researcher Susan D. Brock told me, this field has a view that “if it can’t be measured, it doesn’t exist.” Medicine has a long history of stigmatizing illnesses that it does not understand and cannot yet be easily measured. Clinicians want to be able to treat a illness that resolves. If the patient has a chronic condition or a series of systemic symptoms that are difficult to quantify, the doctor cannot provide a quick solution. These patients are often dismissed as marine jars or as suffering from psychosomatic disorders. Therefore, it still has a long COVID.

Some patients report meeting doctors who want to help but lack the skills and bandwidth to do so. In the early days of the pandemic, staff at the Post COVID Care Center on Mount Sinai spent hours with the patient during the patient’s ingestion session. Compare this to a silo-based US medical system designed to maximize efficiency. Its basic component is a 15-minute visit by a clinician. Therefore, Putrino believes that medicines need more than just an infusion of interest and money to effectively treat long COVIDs. Additional funding will not “make meaningful cultural changes in the research and clinical world” until the research center begins to “actively involve people in these conditions” in the decision-making process. He says.

The potential for change goes far beyond the long COVID. Understanding the causes of this condition may reveal treatments for ME / CFS, tick-borne diseases, and other diseases associated with immune system dysfunction. Many of these are on the rise. “Understanding the etiology of long-term COVID not only helps clarify the parallel mechanism of ME / CFS, but is also the key to understanding autoimmune diseases because many autoimmune diseases occur after infection. I think there is a possibility of grasping it, “says Mr. Iwasaki.

It’s time for medical researchers to harness the power of science to investigate these long-disputed illnesses and for medical educators to effectively train doctors. care For patients with chronic illness. Otherwise, millions of patients will fail, not just this generation of patients.