The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has published a new report that better defines long COVID. The group put together the consensus document at the federal government’s request. Other groups have assembled details on long COVID, but the information is segmented and there’s no unified definition.
“Inconsistencies in definitions have created challenges, and a consensus definition could promote consistency in diagnosis, aid awareness efforts, help patients access appropriate care, services and benefits, and help harmonize long COVID research and surveillance,” the authors said.
The definition is: “Long COVID (LC) is an infection-associated chronic condition (IACC) that occurs after SARS-CoV-2 infection and is present for at least three months as a continuous, relapsing and remitting, or progressive disease state that affects one or more organ systems.”
According to NASEM, long COVID can result from asymptomatic, mild or severe cases of COVID-19. The definition includes that some people with long COVID have activity limitations that can affect their lives and the lives of those close to them.
The lack of a definition has “hampered research and delayed diagnosis and care for patients,” Harvey Fineberg, MD, president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the chair of the authoring committee, said in a press release.
The definition, and the term “long COVID,” should be used by clinicians, researchers, drugmakers, employers and educators, the authors said. The authors said that long COVID can be diagnosed clinically.
“No biomarker currently available demonstrates conclusively the presence of long COVID,” the authors wrote.
“Long COVID is a devastatingly persistent result of the COVID-19 pandemic that the medical community has yet to fully address,” Victor J. Dzau, MD, president of the National Academy of Medicine, said in the statement. “Serving this patient population through better-coordinated care, more definitive diagnoses, and more efficient and streamlined research are important next steps for addressing its impact.”
NASEM recently published another report stating that there are more than 200 symptoms affiliated with long COVID.
