In some cases, C O VID-19 has been shown to cause both acute as well as prolonged neuropsychiatric manifestations, possibly due to CNS immune cell activation.13,14 Between 13 and 23% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients suffer from fatigue and PEM-like symptoms more than 6 months after the infection.15 These numbers, although alarming, are hardly surprising. Looking back at the 2002/03 SARS pandemic, a similar proportion of hospitalized patients with a severe course also developed CFS/ME (27% of survivors 4 years after hospitalisation).16Other common pathogens that can lead to CFS/ME include viruses like Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), cytomegalovirus (CMV) and enteroviruses, bacteria such as mycoplasma, Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme disease), and Coxiella burnetii (Q fever).17 In fact, in 3 out of 4 cases of CFS/ME, the disease develops following an infectious episode.18 Interestingly, the innate immune response to infections is generally higher among women than men, which could perhaps also explain the higher prevalence of CFS/ME among women given the role that immunity plays in it. With an estimated prevalence of 0.1-0.7%, CFS/ME is far above the threshold value set by the European Union for classification as a rare disease (<5:10,000).
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Source: Bonk JS, Khedkar PH. Chronic fatigue syndrome: an old public health issue highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Acta Physiol (Oxf). 2022 Jul 30:e13863. doi: 10.1111/apha.13863. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35906837. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/apha.13863 (Full text)