Chronic COVID Syndrome: Need for an appropriate medical terminology for Long-COVID and COVID Long-Haulers.

Baig, Abdul Mannan

With the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus diseases (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2, there has been a surge in research and publications related to its pathogenesis and the clinical presentation of the affected patients. Many aspects of this novel virus have raised confusion including the naming of the virus and the disease it causes, the staging of its clinical presentation to highlight a few such occurrences. An emerging aspect of the clinical presentation related to COVID-19 is the long-term effects, which in the absence of any consensus has been termed as long-covid and long-haulers in recent publications. As the COVID-19 is a zoonotic infection and comes under a medically related disease, the term chronic covid syndrome (CCS) would be a more traditional way of symbolizing the so-called long-covid and long-haulers in COVID-19. Though the renaming of this chronic state of now well-recognized chronicity seen in COVID-19 would not affect its prognosis, this is much needed to recognize this entity with a more appropriate nomenclature as published work is making its way into databases like Google Scholar and PubMed. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.