The COVID-19 can take an insidious shape: some patients, sometimes without even being passed through the hospital, suffer in the long course of a wide variety of symptoms. If these end up resorbing, the magnitude of the phenomenon is not fully identified.
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More than a year and a half after the start of the pandemic, the long COVID remains a mystery. Yet accustomed to observing post-infective symptoms, the doctors had been confused by arrival, from May 2020, many patients still showing a vast clinical picture several weeks after being infected with the SARS-COV-2: fatigue , dyspnea, pain, anosmia, agueusie …
If the specialists see it a little clearer on the contours of the long COVID and find that “the vast majority of patients improve, many points remain outstanding,” says Professor Dominique Salmon-Ceron, Infectiologist at the ‘Hôtel-Dieu (Public Assistance-Hospitals of Paris, AP-HP). It has put in place one of the first consultations on post-Covid-19, as of May 2020 – breaking the position of some doctors believing that it is psychosomatic manifestations. Patients also denounce the fact of not being always taken seriously by the medical profession.
After attending consultations in March, return to the Hotel-Dieu, in early September, to appreciate the evolution of patients – whose course looks like some to a marathon.
So Salomé, come that day in consultation, complains of a kind of “brain fog”, ten months after having contracted the CVIV-19, which was then translated by Fatigue, headaches, anosmia and agueusia, respiratory discomfort. A PET-scan, a functional imaging examination that measures glucose consumption at the brain level, has shown moderate hypometabolism at the brain trunk, hippocampus, cerebellum and olfactory bulb.
For this 21-year-old student, third year of psychomotricity, “fatigue is less present, but it remains supported”. Salome, however, continued his classes. The Agueusie persists, even if the olfaction is a little returned. This summer, after a month of June devoted to his exams, she sometimes slept until fifteen hours in a row. If the respiratory physiothe has helped it a lot – she resumed running – she still feels this “thoracic oppression” and feels out of breath up three floors.
Most of the women
How many infected people are they in the same case? Difficult to know the exact prevalence of Long COVID. “To answer it, it would take large-scale studies made among the symptomatic and asymptomatic people in general population, indicates Dominique Salmon-Ceron. Studies show that about 25% to 30% of patients still keep symptoms one to two months After the initial diagnosis and 10% to 15% after six to eight months. “
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