IT is still not well understood why some people suffer from long term cognitive and physical problems after battling and recovering from a Covid-19 infection, said Sungai Buloh Hospital infectious disease consultant Dr Suresh Kumar Chidambaram.

The condition known as “Long Covid” happens when people who, upon recovering, still continue to suffer long term effects of the virus.

“This is still not well understood. They get discharged, go home but they are never perfectly well. We don’t know why it happens and we are still working on it.

“They are fatigued, they get tired very fast, some of them have shortness of breath and they will have muscle aches and chest pains.

“Some people have brain fog, their thinking is not as agile as before, they are slow in thinking,” Suresh said.

Suresh added that having Long Covid did not always correlate to how severe the Covid-19 cases were, nor is age a factor.

“It’s not necessary for them to have had a severe disease. They could have had a mild Covid-19 disease, it doesn’t always correlate with the severity.

“Age is not an issue (in Long Covid). But females get it more than males,” he said.

How long is long?

Most people who suffer from Covid-19, Suresh said, will recover in three months. It is those who still suffer from effects of the disease after more than 12 months that is the cause for concern

“Three to six months we say short term, six to 12 months medium term and more than 12 months is long term.

“Most people get better in three months. You had a bad disease and it takes some time to get better.

“Up to three months, it’s still part of the disease and we’re okay with that. Just hang in there and carry on with your job and you’ll get better.

“There will be a small group that continues beyond three months. That is the group we are interested in and we want to find out why and how it happened,” Suresh said.

He said Covid-19 patients who were admitted are followed up by the rehabilitation unit once they are discharged.

The hospital is still in the process of collecting data with regards to how frequent these symptoms are and how long they last.

“The data is still evolving and the science is still evolving, we still don’t know how best to support them.”

Suresh said the hospital was initially not aware of Long Covid as they did not systematically follow up with each patient initially. This was also due to the fact that some patients did not come forward seeking for help, dismissing their symptoms as something temporary.

The majority of the patients that the hospital had started following systematically are the third wave patients, those admitted from November- December onwards.

“We followed up when their diabetes was not controlled, their pressure was not controlled, their heart diseases needed further treatment.

“We didn’t follow them up as Long Covid. (For) Long Covid, you ask different questions,” he said.

Suresh added that the hospital intends to embark on investigating the first 6,368 patients that Sungai Buloh Hospital treated and ask them a set of questions in order to better understand Long Covid and to come up with data.

“These are not always disabling symptoms. These are subtle disabilities. Unless you ask everybody a standard questionnaire, you won’t pick up everything.

“(We need to) Learn more about why it happens before we can come up with corrective treatment for patients.”

Suresh said for the majority of patients who suffer Long Covid, the symptoms eventually go away. However, a small minority might suffer disabling effects.

As of now, it is only a small group of people who are living with Long Covid, but Suresh cautioned that this figure also correlates to the number of infections the country reports.

“If the number of people getting infected is huge, this (Long Covid) will be a huge number.

“It’s a cause for concern that we may have lots of people who are very disabled because of Long Covid, but we will need to learn more about the disease,” he added.

Malaysia yesterday recorded 1,300 new infections bringing the total number of cases to 353, 329 since the start of the pandemic. The total number of fatalities to date stands at 1,300. – April 7, 2021.