Prolonged fatigue after viral illnesses has been known for a long time and the numbers can be very high.
Post-viral fatigue is a type of extreme tiredness that sometimes happens after a recent viral infection. We'll go over its common symptoms, how it's diagnosed, and the treatments that can help. You'll also find out about resources that can help you navigate the complicated world of chronic fatigue.
www.healthline.com
Post-viral syndrome, or post-viral fatigue, refers to tiredness or weakness that lingers after a person fights off a viral infection. Learn more here.
www.medicalnewstoday.com
They have also been known to damage the heart.
en.wikipedia.org
Those older members may remember Fiona Coote who at age 14 in 1984 had Australia's 4th heart transplant.Her disease was a viral cardiomyopathy.
We really don't know the true incidence of viral cardiomyopathy because unlike Covid most cases of viral infection are not tested and often when people present with a cardiomyopathy the patient may have forgotten about a previous infection.Though my last few years in practice were treating heart failure and a few did trace their onset of symptoms to a bad "flu" though not tested for at the time.
Again with the flu there are no calls for testing anyone with the mildest symptoms for flu even when we know it is prevalent.I have no doubt that the incidence of flu is much higher than the number of reported cases.
Also with deaths during a flu outbreak there are no issued guidelines to put the flu as a disease that has played a part in the death from heart disease,dementis etc as there are with Covid.We do know however that deaths from heart disease are more likely in the months after the flu and other viral infections.
With the Xenon scan it is a new type of scan.The article linked above said that conventional scans were normal.this has not been done after other viral respiratory infections so we can't say Covid is different at this stage.However we do know that Influenza A infection can cause chronic lung damage.
Clinical and experimental observations suggest that chronic lung disease is linked to respiratory viral infection. However, the long-term aspect of this relationship is not yet defined using a virus that replicates at properly high levels in humans and a corresponding animal model. In this...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov