Post by Nadica (She/Her) on Oct 10, 2024 23:46:45 GMT
Editorial: Updating long COVID: mechanisms, risk factors, and treatment - Published Sept 18, 2024
Introduction
The rapid spread of the coronavirus disease, 2019 (COVID-19) has provoked the most unprecedent sanitary crisis of this century leading to up to 776 million confirmed cases and more than 7 million deaths worldwide (WHO, 2023). In fact, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the pathogen responsible of COVID-19, has become one of the most investigated virus due to a total explosion of research thanks to the publication of thousands and thousands of papers in a relatively small period of time.
Extensive research aiming to decrease the severity and mortality of COVID-19 has been published. For instance, administration of antivirals at an early stage of the acute COVID-19 phase has shown to decrease mortality rate, hospitalization stay, and COVID-19 severity (Zur et al., 2024). Similarly, the development of COVID-19 vaccines has been one of the most important advances in the fight against SARS-CoV-2. Thus, vaccines have demonstrated to be effective for reducing the risk of severe COVID-19 and also associated mortality (Dinagde et al., 2024); however, vaccines have not been effective for preventing SARS-CoV-2 contagion (Wang et al., 2022). In fact, SARS-CoV-2 trophism has resulted in the appearance of several variants in a short period of time (Jagst et al., 2024). The worldwide spread of new variants of concern has led to reinfections (Sciscent et al., 2021).
Albeit all the progress and efforts done for fighting against SARS-CoV-2, another growing healthcare problem derived from COVID-19 is the presence of long-lasting or persistent symptoms once the acute infection has passed. The presence of persistent long-lasting symptoms after the acute infection has received several and heterogenous names from the beginning of the pandemic (Yang et al., 2024), being long-COVID (Fernández-de-las-Peñas, 2022) or post-COVID-19 condition (Soriano et al., 2022) the terms most accepted. Some meta-analyses have reported that up to 25–30% of COVID-19 survivors exhibit post-COVID symptomatology one (Chen et al., 2022; Han et al., 2022) and two (Fernández-de-las-Peñas et al., 2024; Rahmati et al., 2023) years after an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. Further, a recent meta-analysis estimated a pooled worldwide prevalence of long-COVID of 41.8% (95% CI 39.7–43.9%) (Sk Abd Razak et al., 2024), although this rate is based on studies including COVID-19 survivors infected during the first year of the pandemic, mostly with the historical strain and Delta variable. In fact, it has been found that the average direct medical costs of a patient with post-COVID symptoms ranges from US $1,264 to 79,315 (Faramarzi et al., 2024).
Nevertheless, several gaps in different aspects of post-COVID-19 condition exist. The aim of the Research Topic “Updating long COVID: mechanisms, risk factors, and treatment” published in Frontiers has focused on several aspects of post-COVID-19 condition, a topic of emerging relevance due to the presence of millions of “long-haulers” worldwide. In this Editorial, we discuss the following topics: 1, mechanisms underlying post-COVID-19 condition; 2, clustering of post-COVID symptoms; and 3, risk factors of post-COVID-19 condition.
Introduction
The rapid spread of the coronavirus disease, 2019 (COVID-19) has provoked the most unprecedent sanitary crisis of this century leading to up to 776 million confirmed cases and more than 7 million deaths worldwide (WHO, 2023). In fact, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the pathogen responsible of COVID-19, has become one of the most investigated virus due to a total explosion of research thanks to the publication of thousands and thousands of papers in a relatively small period of time.
Extensive research aiming to decrease the severity and mortality of COVID-19 has been published. For instance, administration of antivirals at an early stage of the acute COVID-19 phase has shown to decrease mortality rate, hospitalization stay, and COVID-19 severity (Zur et al., 2024). Similarly, the development of COVID-19 vaccines has been one of the most important advances in the fight against SARS-CoV-2. Thus, vaccines have demonstrated to be effective for reducing the risk of severe COVID-19 and also associated mortality (Dinagde et al., 2024); however, vaccines have not been effective for preventing SARS-CoV-2 contagion (Wang et al., 2022). In fact, SARS-CoV-2 trophism has resulted in the appearance of several variants in a short period of time (Jagst et al., 2024). The worldwide spread of new variants of concern has led to reinfections (Sciscent et al., 2021).
Albeit all the progress and efforts done for fighting against SARS-CoV-2, another growing healthcare problem derived from COVID-19 is the presence of long-lasting or persistent symptoms once the acute infection has passed. The presence of persistent long-lasting symptoms after the acute infection has received several and heterogenous names from the beginning of the pandemic (Yang et al., 2024), being long-COVID (Fernández-de-las-Peñas, 2022) or post-COVID-19 condition (Soriano et al., 2022) the terms most accepted. Some meta-analyses have reported that up to 25–30% of COVID-19 survivors exhibit post-COVID symptomatology one (Chen et al., 2022; Han et al., 2022) and two (Fernández-de-las-Peñas et al., 2024; Rahmati et al., 2023) years after an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. Further, a recent meta-analysis estimated a pooled worldwide prevalence of long-COVID of 41.8% (95% CI 39.7–43.9%) (Sk Abd Razak et al., 2024), although this rate is based on studies including COVID-19 survivors infected during the first year of the pandemic, mostly with the historical strain and Delta variable. In fact, it has been found that the average direct medical costs of a patient with post-COVID symptoms ranges from US $1,264 to 79,315 (Faramarzi et al., 2024).
Nevertheless, several gaps in different aspects of post-COVID-19 condition exist. The aim of the Research Topic “Updating long COVID: mechanisms, risk factors, and treatment” published in Frontiers has focused on several aspects of post-COVID-19 condition, a topic of emerging relevance due to the presence of millions of “long-haulers” worldwide. In this Editorial, we discuss the following topics: 1, mechanisms underlying post-COVID-19 condition; 2, clustering of post-COVID symptoms; and 3, risk factors of post-COVID-19 condition.