‘Ensure support is available for COVID-19 survivors’

Healthcare systems around the world need to develop ways of supporting people in the community who are recovering from COVID-19, say researchers.

If they don’t, there is a risk that people experiencing long-term symptoms will get worse and put additional strain on already-stretched health resources.  

Although COVID-19 starts as an acute infection of the lungs, it can develop into a “multi-system illness” leaving people with symptoms that can last for months or even years – including breathlessness, fatigue, weakness, pain, cardiac problems, cognitive and psychological problems. 

More than one-third of the people who have been severely ill with the disease could have long-term symptoms, some of them debilitating.  

The study - Development of an integrated rehabilitation pathway for individuals recovering from COVID-19 in the community - by experts from the University of Leeds, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust and NHS Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group has been published in the Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine. 

Read more about the project led by Dr Manoj Sivan from the School of Medicine.