LETTER | Long-Covid affects work productivity

LETTER | Long-Covid is a range of symptoms that continue for weeks or months beyond the initial Covid-19 illness. Long-Covid can happen to any Covid-19 patient, even patients who were not hospitalised and who have mild illness can experience persistent or late symptoms. Some patients develop medical complications that may have lasting health effects.

From the preliminary results of our study on Long-Covid among Covid-19 survivors (n=487), about one-third perceived that they were not in good health currently, compared to before Covid-19 infection.

Upon recovery from Covid-19, the most common symptoms reported were fatigue (72.3 percent), followed by difficulty in thinking/concentrating (59.6 percent), joint/muscle pain (47.1 percent), insomnia (45.5 percent), feeling anxious (42.9 percent) and depressed (39.3 percent). Other common symptoms were cough (38.4 percent), feeling sick (35.8 percent), loss of smell/taste (35.3 percent), increased heartbeat (33.2 percent), difficult breathing (33 percent), weight loss (31.9 percent), dizziness on standing (31.8 percent) and headache (30.6 percent).

Thirty percent of them experienced some of the above symptoms up to six weeks post recovery, while ten to twenty percent and about ten percent respondents experienced these symptoms up to three months or six months respectively.

About one-third of the respondents complained that these symptoms affected their work productivity where they had to reduce their work hours (64.3 percent) or take leave (30.8 percent) from work.

Do you as a Covid-19 survivor have similar or different experiences? Do participate in our survey in order for a better representation of Covid-19 survivors, which will yield more accurate and valid findings.

This survey takes less than 10 minutes to complete and it is anonymous.

For those who are lucky not to get infected with Covid-19, do practice all SOPs and get vaccinated in order to protect you and your loved ones. To avoid Covid-19 is to avoid Long-Covid.

DR MOY FOONG MING is a professor at Universiti Malaya’s Department of Social & Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.