Dr. Anthony Fauci recently recognized the possible link between long-term Post-Covid syndrome and ME/CFS. David Tuller and I have an article on STAT News explaining why this is a very big deal. Here is the gist:
Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious diseases expert, acknowledged this month that the symptoms in many of these unrecovered patients are “highly suggestive” of myalgic encephalomyelitis, the disabling illness also commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS. “This is something we really need to seriously look at,” said Fauci.
Fauci’s observation, echoed by others, is vitally important, and not only because it provides a warning about the pandemic’s potentially devastating long-term health effects. By noting the possible connection between “post-Covid syndrome” and ME/CFS, Fauci has highlighted the long-neglected field of post-viral illness — a poorly understood phenomenon that likely holds important clues about the causes of, and treatments for, both conditions.
Had U.K. and U.S. medical authorities not been so invested for years in fruitless psychological and behavioral interventions for ME/CFS, perhaps they would have listened over the years when patients told them that exercise and psychotherapy did not get them “back to normal.” Perhaps they would have pursued essential biomedical research instead.
We may now be paying the price for this longstanding disregard, given our urgent need for robust information about the possible long-term consequences of a virus that has already infected millions of people around the world, an unknown number of whom will experience some form of post-Covid disability. Studies of these people are likely to yield significant insights into this viral illness as well as into ME/CFS.
You can read the entire article here.
Comments