News Release
Tuesday 13 April 2021
Many people who have COVID-19 recover completely and return to their basic state of health; however, some people have symptoms or other consequences weeks or months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection. These heterogeneous symptoms were the subject of the virtual “Workshop on Post-acute Sequelae of COVID-19” presented on 2 and 4 December 2020 by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in collaboration with other institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health. A paper recently published in Annals of Internal Medicine describes the workshop. More than 1,200 registered participants, including researchers, clinicians and community members affected, discussed what is known about consequences after COVID-19 and the knowledge gaps that need to be addressed in future research.
The constellation of symptoms and other effects experienced by those who do not return to their basic health after COVID-19 are mentioned by many names, including post-acute consequence of COVID-19 (PASC), and long or long haul COVID. The symptoms can be very severe and expensive and can affect numerous organ systems. Reported symptoms include severe fatigue, cognitive dysfunction and shortness of breath, as well as psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression. Long-term effects of COVID-19 have been reported in all age groups and demographics and in persons with asymptomatic, mild or severe initial COVID-19 disease. If only a small fraction of SARS-CoV-2 infections lead to long-term effects, the global burden of disease will be significant.
In addition to reviewing existing data, workshop presenters also identified important knowledge gaps. The epidemiology in particular is not fully characterized, and it needs to be expanded to identify and help vulnerable groups of people. The full clinical spectrum of post-acute COVID-19 is not yet known, nor are the reasons why the symptoms manifest so differently in individuals. Underlying pathophysiology is not determined and may be due to SARS-CoV-2 itself, or to the immune response to infection.
Because COVID-19 is a new disease, researchers are still documenting the spectrum of recovery and trying to understand the different outcomes that patients may experience. People who do not return to their basic state of health have diverse clinical conditions that require individualized and multidisciplinary approaches to treatment.
Workshop discussions emphasized that longitudinal studies, ideally including systematic assessments of different organ systems, and involving different populations, would be necessary to properly characterize the post-acute COVID-19. Careful study of the virus and the immune response to infection can help researchers understand how manifestations of post-acute COVID-19 arise. These research efforts should involve collaboration between clinicians, researchers, advocacy groups, and patient communities.
Article
‘N Lerner et al. Understanding COVID-19 recovery: National Institutes of Health workshop on post-acute COVID-19. Annals of Internal Medicine DOI: 10.7326 / M21-1043 (2021).
Who
Dr. Emily Erbelding, director of the NIAID Division for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID), is available for comment.
Contact
Contact Elizabeth Deatrick, (301) 402-1663, [email protected] to schedule interviews.
NIAID conducts and supports research – at NIH, across the United States and worldwide – to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat these diseases. News reports, fact sheets and other NIAID related material are available on the NIAID website.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):
NIH, the country’s medical research agency, contains 27 institutes and centers and is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency that conducts and supports basic, clinical, and translational medical research, investigating the causes, treatments, and drugs for common and rare diseases. Visit www.nih.gov for more information on NIH and its programs.
NIH… To turn discovery into health®