I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University) announced the launch of its study called “A set of key outcomes in patients with post-COVID syndrome (PC-COS)” in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) and methodology experts from the initiative “Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials” (COMET).
According to the press service of the university, this project complies with the methodological standards of the COMET (Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials) initiative and is available as a preprint here.
“We really hope that the results of our work will help to improve the quality of data collected around the world and better understand the post-COVID state. And this, in turn, will give us an opportunity to help people suffering from post-COVID syndrome more effectively,” said Daniil Munblit, professor of the Department of Pediatrics and Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Sechenov University, co-director of the project.
Earlier, the WHO called on the international medical community to prioritize research on the long-term effects of COVID-19, including the collection of standardized data, suggesting the term “post-COVID syndrome” for people living with chronic symptoms that are often also called long COVID. Such patients have a large number of symptoms in a variety of combinations, but the most common ones, which affect the condition of people, are fatigue, cognitive problems, and shortness of breath. Despite the data obtained in the early stages of the pandemic, little is known about how common and disabling these symptoms are, about their causes and the best ways to treat them.