ROMA. From chronic fatigue to difficulty breathing, passing through skin rashes and hair loss: the complexity of the symptoms of the so-called “Long Covid” that persist even after healing from the infection, require a comprehensive care approach and large-scale studies “to avoid years of struggle for sufferers”. To trace a picture of how to approach the growing number of people who, although cured of Sars-Cov-2 infection, still bear the signs, is an editorial published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.
The reflection is the result of the Long Covid Forum, an international forum held from 9 to 10 December 2020, which brought together patients, clinicians and researchers, public health experts and policy makers.
The event, which saw the introduction of the director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and the participation of the Long Covid Support patient group, focused on three keywords: recognition, research and rehabilitation . The comparison of many different voices made it possible to describe “a complex and multifaceted condition that involves a series of physical, cognitive and psychological symptoms, which affects adults and children in different contexts, with professional, economic and social implications”.
Such complexity, the paper authors conclude, “requires a multidisciplinary and globally coordinated approach that supports large-scale harmonized studies that have the power to provide robust evidence to inform policy and care and support centered on the patient to improve symptoms of Covid in the long term “.
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