Part of the mystery surrounding what is called the “long Covid” could well be unraveled and bring some hope in this long health crisis. Some patients keep after-effects of Covid for months. And doctors are still struggling to understand the mechanisms of this “long Covid” to treat it. The details of Géraldine Zamansky, journalist for the Health magazine on France 5.
franceinfo: Researchers have finally solved part of the mystery?
Geraldine Zamansky : This is indeed the double hope of this week. Because two teams, one Swiss and one American, have each discovered commonalities between patients who do not recover after a month, which is the first definition of long Covid.
To obtain these results, the researchers followed hundreds of patients for months, and some even for a year in Switzerland. They mainly took blood samples from them and evaluated their symptoms. The main difficulties present over a long period were fatigue, respiratory problems, smell and taste disorders, but also loss of concentration and memory. And there may be many other anomalies.
And so the researchers found in the blood tests of these patients with long Covid some sort of warning signs?
Exactly. Both the Swiss and the Americans have identified specific reactions of their immune defenses. Especially at the level of the antibodies that the body produces to fight against the virus. Well, in patients with long Covid, there would be few “good” soldiers and too many somewhat disoriented bad soldiers who can turn against our own cells. These are auto-antibodies known for their toxicity in chronic diseases.
The American team also showed the existence of a double viral attack for certain patients. In fact, these people had already been infected with another virus called Epstein-Barr which had quietly fallen asleep there. And yes, it is possible, those who live with herpes know it well. So, there, the coronavirus woke up its colleague, creating additional aggression for the organism.
And these discoveries could be transformed into a strategy for the prevention of long Covids?
It is hope. Because there is yet another strategy that I haven’t told you about: viral load. The more coronavirus there is in the blood at the start of the infection, the greater the risk of having a long Covid. And this could be slowed down by new antiviral drugs, for example.
Attention, this is only the beginning, I speak well here in the conditional. But as this week is decidedly full of news for the long Covid, a third study has just shown that vaccination reduces the risks. So it’s progressing!
>>> To read
– The US study
– The Swiss study
– Vaccination study
– PostJ20 Patient Association
– Long Covid information sites
– Who to contact? (Covid long, who to contact in Ile de France)