The former group has proven far more straightforward for doctors to manage. The general scientific consensus is that around one in 10 Covid-19 patients will still have symptoms 12 weeks later.īut to fully understand the subtleties of this complex condition, it is necessary to consider long Covid as encompassing two very disparate patient groups – those who were admitted to hospital and those who weren't – each with different underlying causes. Such cases are now known as long Covid or post-acute Covid-19 syndrome, a post-viral illness which has proven to be more prevalent than anyone initially imagined. Research studies have found persistent fatigue to be present in at least 62% of long Covid patients. The most common symptom, which Heightman says was experienced by more than 80% of patients in her clinic, is a deadening fatigue which impairs their life, making it difficult to complete the simplest of daily tasks. "Most hospitals weren't able to see them easily, because they didn't have the budget to open a dedicated post-Covid clinic. "These patients were initially left behind," says Heightman. It was a conundrum that the medical world was not expecting. Rather than subsiding, these symptoms continued to persist for weeks and even months after the virus had supposedly left their bodies. Their stories all followed a recurring pattern, beginning with an apparently mild infection, before a strange constellation of ailments started to emerge. More than half were never admitted to hospital for Covid-19.Īlmost as soon as the clinic opened, Heightman began fielding calls from puzzled local GPs, confused at a sudden influx of patients – often relatively young and with no underlying health conditions – who were experiencing chronic symptoms. Little did she know that a year on, a third of the clinic's patients would still be unwell, and largely unable to work. "We thought it would be like flu, it would all just go away, and be fine." "At the beginning of the pandemic, we didn't know what the long-term sequelae of a Covid infection would be," says Heightman, a consultant respiratory specialist.
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For the majority of these patients, she hoped the road to full recovery would be swift. When Melissa Heightman set up the UK's first post-Covid-19 clinic at University College London Hospitals (UCLH) in May 2020, she expected that the bulk of her time would be filled helping patients recover from the after-effects of spending many weeks on a ventilator.
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