Meet Professor Derya Unutmaz, M.D., to learn more about how long COVID has sparked interest in ME/CFS.
Imagine having the flu and never recovering. That terrible feeling is among the symptoms experienced by those with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), originally and still commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The name CFS implies that it’s just a condition of being fatigued, which, in normal cases, is easily resolved with rest and healthy habits. And that’s how physicians have generally approached it — if they didn’t dismiss it outright as psychosomatic — but ME/CFS does not resolve itself.
Fairly early in the COVID-19 pandemic, a pattern emerged that worsened an already dire situation. While most people returned to normal health once they recovered from the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, a sizable minority did not. They reported lingering brain fog, debilitating fatigue, post-exertional malaise and many other symptoms. At first, many were dismissed by the medical community — the similarities to ME/CFS and its patients were and are notable — but over time it became obvious that post-COVID-19 conditions are very real and can be quite serious. The exact cause(s) of the disease, called post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC) or, more commonly, long COVID, remain(s) unknown. Reactivation of residual viral particles has been implicated, as well as immune dysfunction (similar to that in ME/CFS) and autoimmune activity.
Learn more about Derya’s work here: https://www.jax.org/research-and-faculty/faculty/derya-unutmaz
Learn more about five understudied and/or stigmatized diseases being studied at JAX: https://www.jax.org/news-and-insights/2024/april/5-things-understudied-and-or-stigmatized
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