Long COVID has lingered like a mystery that refuses to be solved. For millions of people across the world, the end of their initial COVID-19 infection did not mark the end of their symptoms. Instead, new challenges emerged, ranging from fatigue and brain fog to shortness of breath, nerve pain, gastrointestinal problems and a frustrating …
COVID-19 may leave behind more than the memory of an infection. A large new study suggests that when the illness becomes severe, it can disturb viruses that have been quietly living in the body for years. These viruses are not necessarily new infections. Some, including Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus (CMV), and herpes simplex virus, can remain …
For many people, recovery from COVID was supposed to be a finish line. A negative test, a few weeks of rest, and life would return to normal. Yet for millions, normal never quite came back. The exhaustion lingered. Concentration slipped. Words disappeared mid sentence. Routine tasks felt heavier than they should. When medical tests returned …
Professor Dennis McGonagle sat in his office at the University of Leeds, staring at medical charts that made no sense. Patients were arriving with a rare autoimmune disease he had studied for years, but something was different. Alarmingly different. MDA5-positive dermatomyositis has always been a condition of Asian populations, particularly among Japanese and Chinese patients. …