As the most serious recent pandemic, the global COVID-19 pandemic focused the attention of biomedical researchers on respiratory diseases caused by viruses. Worldwide, more than six hundred seventy million people had suffered infection with the COVID virus by 2023 .
One infamous feature of COVID-19 is the phenomenon of “long COVID.” About ten percent of infected persons continue to experience the symptoms of the disease, including coughing, stomach pain, diarrhea, problems with the senses of taste and smell, lightheadedness, and dizziness more than four weeks after their first acute COVID symptoms. There have been more than two thousand published studies related to “long” COVID.
In 2023 a team of biomedical researchers in Great Britain published a surprising finding about some other very familiar pathogen-caused respiratory infections that had never been noticed before. They claimed that these other diseases, including the common cold, the flu, and pneumonia can have “long” forms too. Researchers hadn’t previously looked for long persisting forms of colds or the flu.
The British team had the advantage of a huge body of data, collected in response to the pandemic, from over ten thousand British residents. The research subjects included both people who tested positive for COVID, and people who tested negative for COVID and suffered from other kinds of respiratory infections. This other group had just as large a chance of suffering from long forms of a cold or the flu as the COVID-positive group did of suffering long COVID.
This finding will draw more research interest, and help doctors better treat colds and the flu.
