For millions suffering from long COVID, their persistent breathlessness, brain fog and fatigue remain a maddening mystery, but a group of leading microbiologists think they may have cracked the case. The culprit for some long COVID cases, they suggest, might be other infections that accompany SARS-CoV-2.
A review published in eLife by 17 experts, including those from Rutgers Health, argues that co-infections acquired before or during COVID could cause symptoms to persist indefinitely for many people. “This is an aspect of long COVID that is not talked about a lot,” said Maria Laura Gennaro, a microbiologist at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School who chaired the Microbiology Task Force for the National Institutes of Health’s Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery initiative, a large-scale study of long COVID.
Long COVID symptoms, which have affected up to 400 million people worldwide, range from mild impairment to severe disability, striking the brain, heart, lungs and digestive system. Yet no proven treatments exist because the underlying causes remain unknown. The new review synthesizes existing research and expert judgment to make a case that has received little attention: Infections beyond the coronavirus may be critical players.
The most compelling evidence involves Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), the pathogen that causes mononucleosis. About 95% of adults carry latent EBV, typically without symptoms until an immune disruption such as COVID awakens the dormant virus. To read the full story.