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AN INFECTIOUS DISEASE expert has called for an educational campaign for doctors, employers and businesses to support people with long Covid, after some patients were accused of exaggerating their illness.
Infectious disease consultant at the Mater Hospital, Professor Jack Lambert, said there is a belief among the public and the medical community that long Covid patients are making up their illness.
Lambert said that brain scans of people with long Covid show they have brain inflammation among other symptoms.
The disease expert has also called on the Government to provide more resources and treatment for people suffering from the illness and the variety of symptoms.
Lambert told the Oireachtas health committee that some patients have chronic fatigue syndrome as part of their long Covid.
“So many patients have been told there’s nothing wrong with them and just to exercise more,” he added.
“I think that in some communities, both in the general public and in the medical community, there’s the belief that these patients are making up their illness, if they just try harder and be mindful they’ll get better.
“But the reality is most of the patients I took care of are health care workers who never missed a day of work in their life.
“They never missed a day at work in the ICU. They worked long shifts and here they are coming down with Covid from an infection they caught in the hospital.
“Two years later they’ve done everything they possibly can, including private care to get help and they’re basically told there’s nothing wrong with you, just exercise more, be mindful, and that doesn’t work for this condition.
PET scans, brain scans of long Covid patients from research studies have shown there’s brain inflammation there, patients are not making this up.
“It’s real. It’s all in their head, there’s damage to the brain, and that’s really what the focus should be on.
“There should be an educational campaign for employers, occupational health doctors, businesses, to support these patients because they are not making up the problem.”
Lambert also called on the Government to change its long Covid plan, saying the current one is letting patients down.
“We have known this for 18 months based on accumulated scientific damage that brain damage is the issue with long Covid,” he added.
“We need a new plan and new resources and staffing to support these patients to recover and return to being contributing members of society.”
A study carried out by Lambert on patients with long Covid found they had brain fog, cognitive issues, exhaustion, sleeplessness and psychological issues that they did not have before.
“They also had blood pressure, pulse thermoregulation problems, a kind of dysautonomia, which is abnormal signalling of the vagus nerve.
“You recall the patients with Covid get damage to the nerve one and two, which is smell and taste.”
He said he had “no idea” of the number of people impacted by long Covid in Ireland.
Lambert also said that the Department of Health should publish the number of people who present with long Covid.
He told the committee that about a third of patients have significant symptoms after one year of recovering from Covid-19.
“About 1 to 5% of people are still disabled with long Covid after one year, to the point that they’re not able to function as they were prior to them contracting the infection a year before,” he added.
“I also mentioned that probably everybody in Ireland has got Covid and some of them got it twice. So there’s probably five million people have got Covid and even if 1% of those are at risk for getting long Covid, that’s a large population of people who are being disabled by this virus.”
He added: “I think we have to move around the resources.
“So my ideal programme would be having a centre that has neuro-rehabilitation specialists and neurologists working in a multidisciplinary clinic with infectious disease doctors, a range of psychologists because that’s been a significant problem, and that’s been under resourced in terms of the current plan.”
He has also called for GPs to be trained on how to look after people with long Covid, saying there is a need for a network of local doctors to look after patients in their own area.
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There should be no panic, but the ones say it’s only a flu should wake up. Education prevents unnecessary outbreaks.
@Caoimhín O Neill: hope the health system can withstand it. 20% are in serious or critical condition …
@Zhen Lao: That is why this is so serious and some people don’t seem to get it. The flu is as bad but the vulnerable can get vaccinated against it. There is no vaccination for this so hospitals will be over run if it gets out of control……if it gets out of control you won’t get a bed in a hospital not a hope, you are then in the lap of the Gods.
@Caoimhín O Neill: this is the new norm I suspect
@Caoimhín O Neill: Roughly 650,000 people die every year world wide from the flu and that’s from a base of 5,000 000 being infected, 10% chance of death.
Corona has roughly a 4% chance of death at the moment,
You’re absolutely right though, there’s no reason to take it lightly, or help it spread giving it a chance to mutate.
@GrassHopper: your stats are faulty. There are 5 million cases of infection alone in the US yearly. Fatality from seasonal flu is as low as 0.1%
@GrassHopper: Your figures are way off
@GrassHopper: Only 5 million get infected by the flu because we have built up a reasonable degree of heard immunity and we have vaccines. There’s no reason why Covid19 will stop at 5 million infections.
@Stevo The Man On A Mission Returns: Thank you random stranger on the internet with your credible whatsapp group reference. You’ve made a very convincing case of which I can see now reason to doubt.
I am in Singapore and temperature testing is conducted in shops, restaurants hotels, etc. Having a national Id or passport linked to the logged temperature tests in a central database. The number of cured people is now outnumbering new cases. Very professional approach to the problem, they learned to prepare after getting caught unprepared for SARS. All office based companies are splitting their staff to different shifts and or office / home work.
Another hour, another Coronavirus article…
@Ricky: they are really milking this story today. Must be a slow news day.
@Johnny B: Yet, here you both are reading and commenting on it.
@Très Bien: and whinging :)
The symptoms could be any form of flu. Very vague. But then flu is a virus too. Can understand why many people might go undetected.
@Stevo The Man On A Mission Returns: ebola or covid-19? I couldn’t tell with such clinical detail from WhatsApp. That being said, I don’t think the same country that currently has 2 people at a desk at Dublin airport (who look like they’re trying to collect for a sponsored walk) could lock down anything.
I feel like this most days!
We’ll be grand. We’ll just get former Junior Minister Joe Jacob to roll out his iodine tablets, just like he was planning to do in response to the Chernobyl fallout.
And now it seems you can get it twice?
@NotMyIreland: whether people are recovered or not is the question..
@Caoimhín O Neill: I dont know they seemingly had recovered and tested negative at the start of February but tested positive again 2 weeks later?
@NotMyIreland: yes, so unanswered questions..
@Caoimhín O Neill: so many*
@Caoimhín O Neill: the tests are fairly unreliable, I saw an accuracy rate of between 40 to 50%. So people have to be tested four or five times to get an accurate result and even then it’s not a done deal
@NotMyIreland: you can get flu multiple times.
Since it started I have been glued to twitter, scary stuff.
Take a look at BNO Newsroom (@BNODesk): https://twitter.com/BNODesk?s=09
@Sam Cairns: maybe watch “medcram” or “Dr. John Campbell” on YouTube instead. More informative. Also keep an eye on the John Hopkins data page which is updated every 6 hours.
@Stevo The Man On A Mission Returns: Interesting. I’ve also just received a very credible email from a Nigerian prince who needs to transfer a huge inheritance payment out of the country – he said he would split it with me if I help him with the transfer. Just about to send him my bank details, cant believe my luck!
Can’t wait to get the dart to work next week
Stat at home and die alone. All the best. Government.
@MitchConnor: in addition, if you have come from an infected area, continue as normal until you offically are diagnosed and have risked spreading it
How do you spot the difference between covid and flu
@Shawn O’Ceallaghan: severity really. Covid19 doesn’t cause sneezing it appears
@Jonathan Morgan: It is possible to have both Covid-19 and flu concurrently so sneezing shouldn’t be seen as an indicator that Covid-12 isn’t present in individuals exposed to the virus.
@Andi O Donoghue: positive confirmed! The end is nigh!
Keep milking it journal
@Fergus: you’re welcome.
@Stevo The Man On A Mission Returns: quick run
Just curious, what are the legal powers to detain a person in quarantine? And how could that be carried out?
@Stevo The Man On A Mission Returns: is that ppl positive or being tested?
And meanwhile selfish parasites buying masks in bulk and selling them for triple the price in differents sites. Advert.ie and marketplace in facebook among them.
This should be made iligal at this point.
F*** All I wanna know bout it…
@Stevo The Man On A Mission Returns: is that positive or tested?
have your say