THE World Health Organization (WHO) has reiterated the normalcy of “long COVID” but warns, however, that if one still experiences symptoms up to three months after an infection, they should be worried and seek medical evaluation.

Some of the most common symptoms of the post-novel coronavirus condition include shortness of breath, cognitive dysfunction (also known as brain fog), as well as fatigue, the WHO explained.

For the most part, treating with these symptoms means considering what one’s functional status was before and how much that has been depleted.

“In our case definition, we say people should start worrying about three months after their acute COVID-19 illness. That gives some people time to recover from the acute infection, even if they’ve had mild disease or more severe disease. After three months that’s when we say, ‘If you have one of these symptoms, then be concerned that you could have post-COVID-19 condition,’ and get evaluated,” said Dr Janet Diaz, WHO’s lead for COVID-19 Clinical Management Response, during the organisation’s Science in 5 programme.

Though the three noted symptoms are underscored as “most common”, there are over 200 symptoms described in the literature from patients who have had or have the post-COVID-19 condition.

“But if it goes away after a week or a couple of weeks or a month, then we don’t consider it to be long COVID. Now, if it lasts more than two months then we start to say, ‘Okay, we’re concerned that this is long COVID, post-COVID-19 condition.’ At that point patients may experience symptoms for longer than that. They may experience up to six months, and there’s reports of people experiencing protracted symptoms for up to a year or for more than a year,” she disclosed.

Diaz explained that because the condition has various types of symptoms that affect multiple systems of the body, there is no one treatment for all patients.

“The treatment has to be patient-centred and focused on the symptoms the patient is presenting with. Now, we don’t have any drugs for the treatment of post-COVID-19 condition but we do have interventions such as rehab interventions or self-management techniques in order to help people improve their quality of life while they still have these symptoms that [they] have not yet fully recovered [ from],” she explained.

An example of one of these self-management techniques, Diaz added, would be one not overexerting himself if he or she is feeling fatigued.

She advises, “If you have cognitive dysfunction, as I described before, don’t multitask and have too many screens up at the same time, or try to do too many things — and try to focus on the one activity that you’re that you’re working on. If you have insomnia (trouble sleeping), then work on sleep hygiene techniques and interventions.

“So, there are a series of these types of interventions that can be done, as well as rehab interventions. Now we do recommend that the care of patients with post-COVID-19 condition be done in a coordinated, integrated way. We do think at the centre of that care model should be someone who knows you — your primary care physician, a general practice clinician that knows you.”

Diaz pointed to the fact that these support systems are absolutely necessary.

“They can reach out to the different specialists in case you need evaluation by a specialist — that can include a neurologist, or a cardiologist, or a pulmonologist, or a mental health specialist or rehab specialist, or someone to help with social work or social or peer-to-peer support groups. So together, this type of care model, we think, is most optimal for patients who are living with post-COVID-19 condition,” she said.