WHO has again warned against ‘Long Kovid’. What are the symptoms, effects

A Twitter page named “LongCovidSOS” recently put out a tweet criticizing the lack of media coverage about the symptoms of Covid for a long time and asked the world health body to raise awareness about the same.

“The @WHO, led by @DrTedros & @mvankerkhove, took a brilliantly early step, in 2020, to identify #LongCovid and raise awareness, but now, as cases rise and the country sees higher daily infection numbers than the norm. Admittedly, under the guise of “living with covid” (sic), read the tweet.

“There seems to be no mention of #LongCovid in any of the media briefings, recommendations or policy papers. The people of the world, especially the developing world, need to inform @WHO to governments about the possibility of developing #LongCovid even from a “mild” infection (sic),” it added.

Citing this, Maria van Kerkhove, infectious disease epidemiologist and head of COVID-19 technical at WHO, said that they have been regularly warning about prolonged COVID-19.

“We agree, please see here where we are regularly warning about this. @WHO and partners around the world recognition, better research for people living with the post COVID-19 situation (#LongCovid) (sic)” and will continue to work towards suitable rehab,” she wrote.

Looking at this let’s see how tall is covid:

In some cases, Covid-19 patients continue to suffer from certain symptoms even after testing negative. It is known as Long Covid.

What are the symptoms of long covid?

One of the most common symptoms of COVID-19 is loss of sense of smell and taste. “Loss of the sense of smell affects about 70 percent of patients who have had covid,” Joaquim Mulol, head of a smell clinic at Barcelona’s Hospital Clinic, was quoted as saying by the news agency. AFP,

He said that a quarter of patients, who have lost their sense of smell due to COVID, do not regain it for months after the initial recovery. Such syndromes for a long time are known as parosmia. It is a smell disorder that distorts the sense of smell.

Apart from this, other symptoms of long-lasting covid include fatigue, persistent cough, breathlessness, brain fog and anxiety.

Q. What are the long term effects of Omicron?

Experts say there isn’t enough data yet to say what kind of long-term effects Omicron might have on us, but this is not to be taken lightly.

Akiko Iwasaki, who studies viral immunology at Yale University, was quoted by Reuters as saying: “We don’t have any data yet on what proportion of infections with Omicron … end up with long-term covid.”

“Those who consider Omicron to be ‘mild’ are putting themselves at risk of a debilitating disease that can persist for months or even years.”