Long COVID effects linger on: Turkish expert

ERZURUM, Turkey

People who have recovered from COVID-19 may continue facing long-term physical or mental health issues, a Turkish health expert has said.

Zeynep Gokcan Cakir, a professor at the Ataturk University Hospital in the eastern Erzurum province, said such patients return to the hospital with serious symptoms called long COVID.

Cakir, who is also vice president of the Emergency Medicine Physicians Association of Turkey, said: "We have observed that people who recovered from COVID-19 do not get rid of the illness completely after the symptoms disappear. We are facing a new medical condition which is being researched all over the world, is taking shape slowly, and which we began to describe recently."

She noted that research on long COVID symptoms is being conducted in places which came under immense impacts, such as the US, France and Italy.

"We have not been able to get rid of COVID-19 easily, and we will be struggling with long COVID symptoms for a while. These symptoms are aches, weakness, fatigue, exhaustion during the daily course of life, pain in the chest, muscles and joints as well as psychological disorders."

She quoted a study based in the US saying half of the patients suffer from mental health issues, with 5% are diagnosed with a rare condition.

Some 30% of patients who recovered from the coronavirus suffer from sleep disorders, Cakir said citing the study.

*Writing by Dilan Pamuk in Ankara