Long COVID: a consequence of chronic post-infectious inflammation!

Abstract

Introduction: Long COVID defines persistence of symptoms in patients that recovered from acute COVID-19 infections. This manuscript is a brief update on current thinking on long COVID and potential causes and consequences.

Areas covered: The extent of long COVID varies between patients with some 200 symptoms described and of different severities. Persistent inflammatory or persistent viral infections or both may be the cause of long COVID but sorting this out will take years.

Expert opinion: Long COVID is an unfortunate consequence of COVID-19 infection and it remains uncertain why some people are afflicted and others not and as with other infectious diseases, it may be both a function of the virus strain, the host or both. Direct organ damage during acute infection versus inflammatory mediated damage over time are important questions to address. The disease outcome and chronic sequelae are likely related to the strains of infectious agent and/or host immunity and genetic predisposition.