{"id":7894,"date":"2024-10-15T18:48:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T23:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=7894"},"modified":"2024-10-15T18:48:04","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T23:48:04","slug":"what-causes-long-covid-for-nearly-half-of-cases-new-research-suggests-an-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/10\/15\/what-causes-long-covid-for-nearly-half-of-cases-new-research-suggests-an-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"What causes long COVID? For nearly half of cases, new research suggests an answer."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/2024\/10\/15\/metro\/long-covid-symptoms-treatment-cause\/\">Boston Globe<\/a> A study from researchers at Mass General Brigham may pave the way for effective treatments. Scientists and doctors have suspected for years that one cause of the mysterious condition known as long COVID may be reservoirs of the virus that remain hidden in the bodies of its victims long after their acute infections have passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier this month, a research team led by Boston-area scientists unveileda study suggesting that this is true for almost half of those suffering from the condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s unlikely that persistent virus is the cause of all long COVID symptoms,\u201d said Dr. David Walt, co-director of the Mass General Brigham Center for COVID Innovation and the study\u2019s senior author. \u201cWhat is more probable is that it\u2019s one of the causes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u00a0<a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/mmwr\/volumes\/73\/wr\/mm7306a4.htm\">estimates<\/a>\u00a0almost\u00a0<a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/covid19\/pulse\/long-covid.htm\">7 percent<\/a>, or close to 18 million Americans, suffer from long COVID, a chronic condition often marked by\u00a0<a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/2024\/10\/02\/metro\/long-covid-treatments-diagnosis-brigham-and-womens\/?p1=Article_Inline_Text_Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a series of debilitating symptoms<\/a>\u00a0that can include extreme exhaustion, difficulty breathing, neurological problems, chronic pain and brain fog. Almost five years after the syndrome was first identified,<a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/2024\/10\/02\/metro\/long-covid-treatments-diagnosis-brigham-and-womens\/?p1=Article_Inline_Text_Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u00a0there are still no approved blood tests to diagnose long COVID, no clinically validated treatments, and no cure.\u00a0<\/a>Due to the myriad ways the disease manifests \u2014 there are more than 300 reported symptoms \u2014 many nowbelieve long COVID may encompass several distinct conditions, with distinct causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/2024\/10\/15\/metro\/long-covid-symptoms-treatment-cause\/\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boston Globe A study from researchers at Mass General Brigham may pave the way for effective treatments. Scientists and doctors have suspected for years that one cause of the mysterious condition known as long COVID may be reservoirs of the virus that remain hidden in the bodies of its victims long after their acute infections [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7895,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7894\/revisions\/7895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}