A San Antonio doctor has helped craft a universal definition for long COVID, a cluster of sometimes disabling symptoms that occur after someone has recovered from COVID-19. UT Health San Antonio Professor and Chair of Rehabilitation Medicine Dr. Monica Verduzco-Guttierrez says the definition makes clear that anyone can develop long COVID.
“The young. People who have mild covid or severe covid…it's not just severe covid. The vaccinated, the unvaccinated. Even people with asymptomatic infections can get long covid,” Verduzco-Gutierrez said.
Verduzco-Guttierrez runs two long COVID clinics, and was on the committee selected by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to wade through four years worth of information and research about the post-COVID syndrome, and create a standardized definition that everyone can use.
The result was a 166-page report that defines long COVID as a medical condition that belongs to a family of chronic conditions that can develop after a person recovers from an infection with a virus, bacteria, fungi or parasites. The condition must persist for at least three months and can affect any organ or system in the body. The report includes more than 200 potential symptoms.
According to this definition, a person doesn’t need to have tested positive for COVID-19 to be diagnosed with and treated for long COVID. Verduzco-Gutierrez says that’s important, because access to testing has been uneven since the beginning of the pandemic.
Verduzco-Gutierrez also noted that the definition will be revised at regular intervals.
“It'll be three years at the most. Or if something really substantial comes out in the interim, then it will be looked at again,” she said.
For much more on the committee’s work and Dr. Verduzco-Gutierrez’s thoughts on how it might help long COVID patients get better care, listen to her conversation with Bonnie Petrie on “Petrie Dish.”
