On the Cusp of the Silent Wave of the Long COVID Pandemic: Why, what and how should we tackle this emerging syndrome in the clinic and population?

Most of the world is happily witnessing a decline in the burden of COVID-19 disease after the global efforts to develop, produce, and deploy anti-SARS-CoV2 vaccines to massive country-level vaccination campaigns. At the same time, this decline is coming at the cost of a silent public crisis due to the rise in the number of people suffering from the post-COVID-19 syndrome (commonly known as long COVID). These people experience a wide set of symptoms, such as persistent fatigue, post-exertional malaise after minimal physical or mental effort, and unrefreshing sleep, representing a substantial healthcare burden worldwide. Some of these people also comply with the current criteria for the diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), a complex disease often stigmatized by society and neglected by research funders over the years.

Like in CFS, it is currently unclear how to diagnose post-COVID-19 syndrome, what mechanisms are involved in the respective pathogenesis, what treatment options are available for case management by medical staff and careers alike, and what the burden of the post-COVID-19 syndrome is different populations. This research topic aims at discussing these questions using new data on post-COVID-19 syndrome or past research experiences related to CFS and other similar diseases.

We are inviting original research, brief reports, reviews, meta-analysis, and comments/opinions on the following topics: case definition and its relation to disease diagnosis, patients’ characterization (symptoms, genetic, epigenetics, co-morbidities, risk factors), disease prevalence/incidence, health economic analyses, and treatment and case management.