DIAGNOSIS OF VIRAL PERSISTENCE IN LONG COVID. SIMPLE AND ECONOMIC (PART 1).
DIAGNOSIS OF VIRAL PERSISTENCE IN LONG COVID. SIMPLE AND ECONOMIC (PART 1).
An improvement in a few days when taking effective drugs against Viral Load, is a POSITIVE Therapeutic Test for Viral Persistence.
DIAGNOSIS OF VIRAL PERSISTENCE IN LONG COVID. SIMPLE AND ECONOMIC (PART 1).
The COVID Epidemic began in my country in the middle of March 2020, and since April 2020, we observed that some cases of COVID presented a Reactivation or Rebound of symptoms after suspending treatment against the Viral Load.
On May 2, 2020 we published our first case report, on an effective treatment against the Viral Load in COVID:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343683169
In said document, the reported cases mention and estimate the tendency to develop a Persistent Infection.
In April 2020 we had already identified that Viral Persistence could occur if a treatment against the Viral Load was not given in sufficient doses and days.
This is why, in the COVID Protocol that we published on May 2, we indicated higher doses and for many more days in Severe and Critical cases of COVID, with the aim of reducing or eradicating the Viral Load and avoiding Reactivations or Rebounds. .
We established that the severity of COVID symptoms was correlated with Viral Load, and logically a higher Viral Load warranted treatment with higher doses and for more days, as shown in the Table:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344454383
Until that date, we called these cases as Infection Reactivation and Viral Persistence. And the cause that originated it was an insufficient treatment in doses and/or days against the Viral Load.
These cases of reactivation have been seen a few years later with the use of Paxlovid and monoclonal antibodies, and are commonly called Rebound or Relapse, to refer to the reappearance of symptoms after suspending effective treatment against the Viral Load. In the following messages we commented on it:
Going back to the story, in the month of May 2020, for us demonstrating that there was Viral Persistence was not difficult or expensive, since until June 2020 more than 90% of the cases of Viral Persistence significantly improved their symptoms after between 2 to 5 days of treatment against Viral Load.
In North American and European countries in those months cases of patients presenting Persistent Symptoms of COVID had begun to be reported, and the terms Long haulers, Post-COVID Syndrome, Persistent COVID, Long COVID, among others began to be used. And we were struck by the fact that Viral Persistence is not considered the main cause, since clinically and due to the therapeutic response to drugs against Viral Load, for our part we were sure of this.
It is then that we carried out the first case report study of patients with Persistent Symptoms or Post-Acute or Prolonged COVID or Long COVID, based on patients we treated between the months of May and June of the year 2020:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344318845
As we mentioned, until June 2020, more than 90% of the cases of Viral Persistence recovered in a short time. But since April 2020 we had already observed that the SARS CoV-2 virus was developing Resistance to the drugs to which it was exposed, first it was to Hydroxychloroquine, and little by little Drug-resistance to IVM developed, but it is still It continues to be useful in both Acute and Chronic COVID, especially in cases in which IVM has not been used previously, or if they used it for a long time, which reduces the probability of drug-resistance developing.
(To be continue)