Hong Kong team develops test for long Covid so recovered patients can tell if trouble lies ahead
- Analysis of stool sample can tell if patients have gut issues that indicate lingering symptoms, according to study
- Infectious diseases expert cautions that CUHK studies were too small-scale, further checks needed
A simple stool test can tell recovered Covid-19 patients their risks of suffering the effects of long Covid with 90 per cent accuracy, researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) have found.
Professor Ng Siew Chien, associate director of the university’s Centre for Gut Microbiota Research, said new technology that analysed bacteria in the gut could predict recovered patients’ risks of suffering long-term after effects.
Long covid, or post-Covid syndrome, refers to various symptoms such as fatigue, anxiety, poor memory, sleeping difficulties and hair loss that persist more than four weeks after patients recover from the virus. It can affect patients who had both mild or severe Covid-19 symptoms.
Ng’s team was the first in the world to discover that long Covid patients have a distinct gut microorganism known as a microbiome, with an imbalance in the amount of different bacteria present.
The imbalance may cause a shortage of “good” bacteria linked to the respiratory system, resulting in prolonged coughing and shortness of breath or an abundance of “bad” bacteria linked to fatigue, insomnia and loss of taste.