— Minister Anthony urges patients to consult with doctors

HEALTH Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, on Wednesday, said that a number of persons after being infected with COVID-19 continue to have some symptoms for long periods of time and is urging these persons to consult their doctor for treatment.

The minister was at the time speaking about issues with long COVID in the country during Wednesday’s edition of the COVID-19 update. He noted that as the virus affects every organ in the body, symptoms for long COVID can vary in different persons.

As a result, Dr Anthony noted that some persons can have issues with their lungs, kidneys and even brains.

“So, the symptoms are varied, very, very varied and they mimic other types of diseases so one of the things that the doctors would have to do is to exclude other diseases, so that’s why it’s important to have different specialty come together to treat this patient because of the different presentation of long COVID,” he said.

To this end, he stated that the ministry has been able to establish such a team at the Georgetown Hospital, and as a result, when patients are discharged, if they have symptoms, they can return to see doctors who are a part of this team and have been working with long COVID patients for quite some time.

“So broadly during long COVID you can have two groups of symptoms if you like, some of the symptoms are what you would call physical symptoms and others would be psychological or neurocognitive symptoms,” he said.
Within these broad categories, he noted that symptoms can range from shortness of breath, fatigue, depression and anxiety.

As such, he mentioned that if there are any persons that have symptoms, they should not wait and think that it is normal. “They should come and consult with the doctors at the hospital so that they can make a diagnosis and determine whether it is long COVID syndrome or it’s something else,” he added.