Determining and mapping out the medium to long term sequelae of COVID-19 and identify factors that account for different disease outcomes

Summary

The current COVID-19 pandemic which is caused by coronavirus has already infected close to eleven and half million people and claimed over half a million lives to date.

There has been an unprecedented commendable effort across the research and clinical community with concerted effort to understand the pathophysiology, risk factors, disease progression and therapeutic measures during the acute phase. However, hardly anything is yet known regarding the medium to long term sequelae of COVID-19 and especially missed out are the non-hospitalised COVID or probable COVID cases with prolonged symptoms (‘long COVID’).

Given the devastating effect of COVID-19 in the acute phase it is not at all surprising that there will be medium to long term sequelae hence the need to follow up these patients to determine and characterise the disease progression and sequelae. We now know that the disease spectrum is very wide and though primarily it is a disease of the respiratory system, it does also affect many organs/systems and overall disease outcome range from asymptomatic to very severe disease and death.

Our work and findings will feed into and benefit the wider research community, primary healthcare providers and better management of COVID-19.