The LONG HAUL

Unable to shake offa cough, aches and fatigue months after serious flu or Covid-19? You may have long fiw’ or long Covid’ the subject of a slew of recent research

- GLYNIS HORNING

“Many people think they’re over Covid-19 or the fl u after being discharged from hospital. That may be true for some people, but our research shows that both viruses can cause long-haul illness,” says Dr Ziyad Al-Aly, clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in the US, referring to a study he led, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases in December 2023.

His team analysed the medical records of more than 80 000 patients hospitalised with Covid and 10 000 hospitalised for seasonal fl u, then followed them for 18 months to fi nd out about their risks of hospital readmission, further health conditions and death.

They found that people who had been hospitalised with either fl u or Covid have an increased risk of longer-term health problems. For ‘long fl u’ these health issues centre on the lungs (persistent cough, shortness of breath), while those of Covid include many organs.

“Covid-19 is more aggressive and indiscriminate in that it can attack the pulmonary system but also strike any organ system, and is more likely to cause severe or fatal conditions involving the heart, brain, kidneys and other organs,” notes Dr Al-Aly.

Both infections carry a signifi cant risk of ongoing disability and disease. And for both, more than half of disability and death occurred months after infection, rather than in the fi rst 30 days.

“Long Covid is much more of a health problem than Covid itself, and long fl u is much more of a health problem than fl u,” he says. “Some people are ending up with serious long-term health problems. We need to wake up to this reality and stop trivialising viral infections and understand that they are major drivers of chronic diseases."

Diagnosing the problem