Maria Laura Avignolo
05/22/2020 - 16:27
- Clarín.com
- Society
The strange sequelae of the coronavirus have begun to resurface in some patients in France, in cases that leave doctors stumped and unanswered . Symptoms of the virus reappear in cured patients, who for them have no scientific explanation. Two studies have been launched to try to interpret them.
"Patients who have had a benign respiratory infection have symptoms that last for 14 days. And they can persist for several weeks. In patients who have severe forms of Covid, it can last longer , "said Henri Patouche, a doctor with the commission specializing in infectious diseases.
Patients are able to overcome the coronavirus, as in other viral infections, thanks to its immune defenses . But as time goes by, French doctors discover new unknown faces of the disease, which surprises them and for which they still have no answers. They have baptized it "the post infectious syndrome" and it is what they are studying in these hours.
Symptoms are tiredness, headache, breathing difficulties, loss of smell. Some disappear after 14 days and others reappear abruptly. After a few days of calm, they return.
"In general there is a repetition that we call 'the honeymoon', between the 15th day of the illness and the 30th day. And it goes away. The signs reappear in some. This is a situation that we have never seen before, ”explained Professor Benjamin Davido, an infectious disease specialist at Covid-19 at the Raymond Poincaré de Garches hospital in the Hauts de Seine.
He is the one who specifies that this reappearance of symptoms affects 5 percent of the patients. But that more and more doctors report these cases . "In an Asian study of 55 Covid-19 sufferers, 5 of them have relapsed," he said.
"In general it is an inflammation induced by the virus and not the virus itself that is at the origin of the reappearance of symptoms. This reaches people who have not developed antibodies, it may be because they are immunosuppressed, "said Dr. Yazdan Yasdanpanah, the chief of infectology at Bichat Hospital, who received and cared for the first patients in France.
Opinions to interpret this new phenomenon are not unanimous. Davido believes that "this first phase is linked to benign symptoms, insufficient to develop immunity ."
“It may be possible that when people resume their lives, after confinement, they confront the virus that is always circulating. Consequently the immune system and symptoms return, "suggested Professor Davido.
A group of infectologists has launched to study volunteer patients to understand the reasons for this return of symptoms of Covid-19.
Paris. Correspondent
ACE
