Nji, Miriam A M, Briones, Elizabeth M, Issa, Anindita et al. · BMC infectious diseases · 2025 · DOI
This study looked at 984 patients who visited specialized clinics for ongoing problems after COVID-19 infection. Patients commonly experienced shortness of breath, fatigue, post-exertional malaise (feeling much worse after activity), and brain fog. Most patients needed multiple medical visits and referrals to different specialists like lung, heart, and neurologists, showing that post-COVID illness is complex and requires coordinated care from many healthcare providers.
This study demonstrates that post-COVID illness shares significant clinical features with ME/CFS, including high rates of post-exertional malaise, fatigue, and cognitive dysfunction, validating the complexity of prolonged post-viral illness. The findings underscore the urgent need for multidisciplinary, coordinated care models and healthcare resource planning—lessons directly applicable to ME/CFS patient management and research priorities.
This study does not establish the cause of post-COVID symptoms or prove whether these represent a distinct syndrome from other post-viral illnesses. As a retrospective observational study without a control group, it cannot determine causation or identify which interventions are effective; it only documents the symptoms and care-seeking patterns of patients who attended these clinics, potentially missing less severely affected patients.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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