COVID-19: More than half of patients recovered have persistent fatigue, says study

According to new research presented at the ESCMID Conference on Coronavirus Disease (ECCVID) reveals that most of the patients who tested positive for coronavirus suffer ongoing fatigue after they have recovered from the illness. The researchers have found that even after 10 weeks of recovering from COVID-19, patients reported persistent tiredness and exhaustion.  Dr. Liam Townsend, an infectious disease doctor at St. James's Hospital and Trinity Translational Medicine Institute in Dublin, Ireland who led the study has said in a statement, "Fatigue is a common symptom in those presenting with symptomatic COVID-19 infection. Whilst the presenting features of SARS-CoV-2 infection have been well-characterised, the medium and long-term consequences of infection remain unexplored,"

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Persistent fatigue after infection

The COVID-19 symptoms include fever, muscle weakness, shortness of breath, vomiting, and diarrhea but Townsend said, "the medium- and long-term consequences of infection remain unexplored." The research is all set to be presented at a virtual meeting of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. It is based on 128 former COVID patients but has not been published in any journal. 

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The study found that 10 weeks after clinical recovery from Covid-19, 52 per cent of the 128 people in the study reported ongoing fatigue. As per reports, the people in that group were typically in the age group of 50 and 54 per cent were female. 
As per reports, the researchers analyzed the severity of the patient's infection and pre-existing health conditions. In addition,  71 out of 128  patients had been admitted to hospital and 57 were not admitted but the researchers found that the fatigue levels were the same. The researchers added that two-thirds of those with persistent fatigue were women. 

The study authors wrote, "This study highlights the importance of assessing those recovering from COVID-19 for symptoms of severe fatigue, irrespective of severity of initial illness, and may identify a group worthy of further study and early intervention". 

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