Long Covid just as severe as acute

An Australian researcher says millions of people who thought they escaped unscathed from the virus, now unknowingly face the possibility of serious illness throughout their life.

Scientist Jeremy Nicholson is suffering from the long-term health effects of COVID-19.

An Australian researcher looking into the long-term impacts of Covid-19 says the world is facing a fresh major health crisis, with tens of millions of people who thought they escaped without serious illness now unknowingly facing the possibility of serious side-effects through their life.

And Murdoch University researcher Jeremy Nicholson would know. After contracting the virus at a conference in Italy in February last year, he’s living proof of how dangerous long-Covid, or post-acute Covid-19 syndrome, can be.

Fourteen months on, he’s still to shake semi-regular bouts of fatigue that leave him bedridden. In the aftermath of his infection, Professor Nicholson developed type-two diabetes and only recently recovered from abnormal liver functioning.

He discovered he had Covid-19 only by inserting himself into his team’s testing group; his blood sample indicated he should have been in hospital.

Part of Murdoch University’s Australian National Phenome Centre, his team’s research has revealed that people who have strong immune responses to the virus, limiting the severity of the disease, trigger a biochemical reaction that can result in a raft of significant health issues, including heart disease, liver dysfunction, kidney problems and neurological symptoms.

While people who were only mildly affected might believe they’d avoided the worst of the infection, Professor Nicholson said there was increasing evidence they were more likely to suffer long-Covid, meaning the vast majority of those infected could be unknowingly living with the consequences of their body’s response to the virus.

“This indicates that part of that immune response that destroyed the virus to start with, to stop the lung problems, might be responsible for some of the long Covid effects.

“That’s fascinating, and it’s also very worrying,” Professor Nicholson said.

“That means there are tens of millions, potentially hundreds of millions, of people who have had their disease risk change for a whole range of different things: heart disease, cardiovascular disease … I hope I’m wrong about all of this, but I’m probably not.”

While not the first paper on long-Covid, a jointly authored research paper – released in the Journal of Proteome on Saturday – is the first to describe the biochemistry of the disease, Professor Nicholson said while not proven, a strong cellular immune system might create its own risks, because it caused inflammatory damage to the body.

Established to explore “strange new diseases”, the ANPC had been open for only three months when the virus exploded in Wuhan before sweeping across the world, bringing populations to a shuddering halt.

For Professor Nicholson and his team, the reality was a little more mundane.

“I made a decision to put the newly completed laboratory at the disposal of Covid research.

“And of course, we’re sitting here in Western Australia, bracing ourselves for the wave, and bugger all happened,” he said.

However, the global reach of the lab has enabled Professor Nicholson to compile a “Global Atlas of Covid-19 biochemistry”.

“Covid became the first major project to go into the national phenome laboratory,” he said.

“We are unpicking the core of the disease, the mechanisms; how the biochemistries are linking to symptoms.

“And we’re now unpicking what is going on in long-Covid – which is going to be … at least as serious in my opinion, as the acute episode.”