Long Covid - never ending story

Abstract

Year 2019 presented the world with a pandemic of a nature the world had not seen for a century. The disease COVID 19 was a challenge at the beginning, a mystery with many unanswered questions and continues to be so to date since the onset. Severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS -CoV2) or Novel Corona virus is the causative organism for COVID-19 pandemic which was first identified in Wuhan in China. The devastating effects of it still seem to persist all over the world. Undoubtedly, it is the most crucial health crisis of our time with its potential to affect every community in the world irrespective of the wealth and development. It has significant morbidity and mortality with long term sequelae. Clinical and Scientific evidence is evolving on the sub-acute and long-term effects of COVID-19, which can affect multiple organ systems. It was evidenced similar long term clinically significant sequelae of survivors of previous coronavirus infections, including the SARS epidemic of 2003 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak of 2012. As a developing country, Sri Lanka has recognized COVID19 not only as a health crisis but also as an economic and social crisis. The patients who recover keep on having distressing and disabling symptoms, presenting to their health care providers looking for help, presenting a challenging task to the health care provider in finding answers. This is long COVID, a story that appears to never end. Definition and epidemiology