Health
1 In 3 COVID-19 survivors suffer long-term health issues
At least one in three patients hospitalised with Covid-19 suffer long-term health issues including multiple organ problems and deteriorated mental health, according to a review of studies looking at the lasting impact of the disease.
Published in the journal Nature Medicine on Monday, the review looked at the frequency of symptoms among Covid “long-haulers”, the most common of which include fatigue, shortness of breath, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Authors of the research said the data pointed to an underappreciated health emergency that governments needed to study more closely and find ways to manage.
“Given the millions of people infected by SARS-CoV-2 globally, the long-term cost on physical, cognitive and mental aspects of health still remain to be seen,” lead author Kartik Sehgal, a medical oncologist at Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, told AFP.
“We may be capturing only the tip of the iceberg.”
While severe Covid-19 infects patients’ lungs — leaving many with long term breathing issues — studies have shown that the virus also attacks other organs, leading to a variety of complications including cardiovascular illness and chronic inflammation.
Sehgal and colleagues reviewed nine long-term studies from Europe, the United States and China and found that several patients reported multiple organ problems months after they were discharged from hospital.
Overall, they found that 30 percent of patients studied reported at least one symptom, such as fatigue, shortness of breath and psychiatric conditions.
One study in Italy of 143 patients found that nearly 90 percent reported lingering symptoms 60 days after they recovered from initial Covid-19 infection.
The most common symptoms were fatigue (53.1 percent), shortness of breath (43.4 percent), joint pain (27.3 percent) and chest pain (21.7 percent).
In total, more than half of patients experienced multiple symptoms two months after leaving hospital.
Three studies from France, Britain and China showed that between 25-30 percent of patients reported sleep disturbances weeks after recovering from Covid-19.
And approximately 20 percent of patients had reported hair loss, according to results from multiple studies.
– ‘Medical needs don’t stop’ –
The results regarding mental health were perhaps equally concerning.
In a cohort of 402 survivors in Italy one month after they were hospitalised, 56 percent tested positive for at least one psychiatric condition such as PTSD, depression or anxiety.
The authors said that around 30 percent of patients had developed PTSD after being hospitalised with Covid-19.
“It is important to not forget about the mental health effects of long-Covid-19, while taking care of the physical symptoms, as they can be easily missed,” said Sehgal, who is also an instructor at Harvard Medical School.
The researchers called for further investigation into long-Covid, and the wider establishment of clinics to treat people with lingering, life-altering symptoms.
Sehgal said he hoped the research showed that simply surviving Covid-19 is not necessarily a satisfactory health outcome.
“Although preventing deaths remains the most important goal, it is also important to recognise the multi-organ morbidity of COVID-19,” he said.
“The medical needs of patients with COVID-19 don’t stop at the time of hospital discharge and they also don’t necessarily stop after three to four weeks.
The West African Society of Parenteral & Enteral Nutrition (WASPEN) has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to make clinical malnutrition a national healthcare priority, warning that the crisis is growing but remains largely overlooked in Nigeria’s healthcare system.
WASPEN’s Founder and President, Dr. Teresa Pounds, made this appeal on Monday during a press conference ahead of the 2025 WASPEN Clinical Nutrition Conference, scheduled for June 17–19 in collaboration with the National Hospital Abuja.
Themed “Bridging the Gap: Integrating Hospital and Community Malnutrition Care in Developing Countries,” the event aims to foster solutions for hospital and community malnutrition.
Describing malnutrition as “the skeleton in the hospital’s closet,” Dr. Pounds emphasised the need for urgent awareness, policy reform, and collaboration among healthcare stakeholders to ensure effective hospital nutrition programs.
“Many patients in Nigerian hospitals suffer from inadequate nutritional support, leading to prolonged hospital stays, increased complications, and higher mortality rates. This issue must be addressed at the highest level,” she stated.
The press conference was attended by the management of Genrith Pharmaceuticals Limited, a major partner, led by its CEO, Chief Emmanuel Umenwa.
Call for National Clinical Nutrition Policy
Dr. Pounds, a U.S.-based specialist in critical care nutrition and a board-certified nutrition support pharmacist, urged the government to implement a national policy framework to support specialised clinical nutrition interventions. She stressed the importance of integrating mandatory nutrition screening and intervention into all healthcare facilities.
She also called on the Federal and State Ministries of Health to expand and enforce standardised clinical nutrition policies, ensure hospitals conduct structured nutrition screening for all patients, makes medical nutrition therapy accessible and affordable, and support research and local production of specialised nutritional products.
She further encouraged NAFDAC, NIPRD, pharmaceutical companies, and NGOs to collaborate on research, funding, and product development to improve hospital and community-based nutritional care.
Invest in Africa’s food markets to win the war on hunger, boost nutrition – AfDB
“We need a national framework that ensures no patient suffers due to a lack of proper nutrition,” the expert stressed.
Conference to Attract Top Medical and Policy Experts
Speaking on the upcoming conference, Dr. Pounds noted that it will bring together leading medical experts, policymakers, and healthcare stakeholders to develop strategies for addressing malnutrition.
Prominent figures expected at the event include Prof. Ali Pate, Coordinating Minister of Health (Special Guest of Honour), Nyesom Wike, Minister of the FCT (Chief Host), Prof. Muhammad Raji Mahmud, Chief Medical Director, National Hospital Abuja (Host), Prof. Audu Bala, President, Nigerian Medical Association (Keynote Speaker), Pharm. Ibrahim Tanko Ayuba, President, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (Guest of Honour), and Prof. Salisu Maiwada Abubaka, President, Nutrition Society of Nigeria (Guest of Honour) admiration.
Pre-Conference Activities
Prof. Raji Mahmud, Chief Medical Director of the National Hospital Abuja, represented by the Chairperson of the Local Organising Committee (LOC), Pharm. Adesola Clara assured that the hospital has the necessary facilities and expertise to host a successful conference. He emphasised that the hospital is fully prepared for the programme.
Also, the WASPEN Central Planning Committee, led by Mrs. Ghinsel Blessing, revealed that pre-conference activities will include a hands-on training workshop on nutritional kits in hospitals, scheduled for June 16, a health walk to raise awareness about hospital malnutrition, expected to be led by First Lady Sen. Oluremi Tinubu.
With malnutrition posing a silent but deadly threat to healthcare outcomes, WASPEN hopes that the Tinubu administration will take decisive action to integrate nutrition-focused interventions into Nigeria’s health policies.
The 2025 WASPEN Clinical Nutrition Conference is expected to be a game-changer in shaping the future of clinical nutrition in Nigeria and West Africa.
Two US biotech companies say the Food and Drug Administration has cleared them to conduct clinical trials of their gene-edited pig kidneys for human transplants.
United Therapeutics along with another company, eGenesis, have been working since 2021 on experiments implanting pig kidneys into humans: initially brain-dead patients and more recently living recipients.
Advocates hope the approach will help address the severe organ shortage. More than 100,000 people in the United States are awaiting transplants, including over 90,000 in need of kidneys.
United Therapeutics’s approval, announced Monday, allows the company to advance its technology toward a licensed product if the trial succeeds.
The study authorization was hailed as a “significant step forward in our relentless mission to expand the availability of transplantable organs,” by Leigh Peterson, the company’s executive vice president.
The trial will initially enroll six patients with the end-stage renal disease before expanding to as many as 50, United Therapeutics said in a statement. The first transplant is expected in mid-2025.
Meanwhile, rival eGenesis said it had received FDA approval in December for a separate three-patient kidney study.
“The study will evaluate patients with kidney failure who are listed for a transplant but who face a low probability of receiving a deceased donor offer within a five-year timeframe,” the company said.
Xenotransplantation — transplanting organs from one species to another — has been a tantalizing yet elusive goal for science.
Early experiments in primates faltered, but advances in gene editing and immune system management have brought the field closer to reality.
Pigs have emerged as ideal donors: they grow quickly, produce large litters, and are already part of the human food supply.
United Therapeutics said trial patients would be monitored for life, assessing survival rates, kidney function, and the risk of zoonotic infections — diseases that jump from animals to humans.
Currently, there is only one living human recipient of a pig organ: Towana Looney, a 53-year-old from Alabama who received a United Therapeutics kidney on November 25, 2024.
She is also the longest-surviving recipient, having lived with a pig kidney for 71 days as of Tuesday. David Bennett of Maryland received a pig heart in 2022 and survived 60 days.
The Swiss government said Thursday it aimed to overhaul its law on medically-assisted reproduction to legalise egg donations and give broader access to sperm donations.
Currently egg donations are not allowed and only married couples can access sperm donations.
The Swiss parliament has long said it wants to change that, and has asked the government with coming up with a proposal to provide broader access.
A government statement said it had “decided to completely revise the law on medically assisted reproduction in order to adapt it to the current context” and had asked the interior ministry to draft a proposed law by the end of next year.
The government said it wants to legalise egg donations in cases where a woman in a couple is infertile, as a parallel to the already legal use of sperm donations in cases of male sterility.
Bern said its priority was “the protection of donors and the welfare of the child”, stressing that “this protection cannot be guaranteed if parents resort to egg donation abroad”.
The government also said it wanted to expand access to both egg and sperm donation to unmarried couples.
After Switzerland legalised same-sex marriage in 2022, married lesbian couples have also had access to sperm donations.
But the government said the current law barring unmarried couples from access to such medically assisted reproduction was “outdated and no longer corresponds to social reality”.
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