Clinical characteristics of healthcare workers with prolonged COVID-19 symptoms: A case series

@#This study was a case series of nine healthcare workers who were documented to have had prolonged symptoms of COVID-19 between April 1, 2020, and November 30, 2020. The majority were females and middle-aged (40–59 years old) with the following comorbid conditions: hypertension, bronchial asthma, and allergic rhinitis. Four healthcare workers directly handled COVID-19 patients. Seven healthcare workers were admitted during the acute phase of the illness, three of whom were diagnosed with COVID-19 Pneumonia, and one was readmitted due to persistent palpitations. Their presenting symptoms varied among the 9 cases, such as chills, fever, headache, cough, colds, sore throat, throat itchiness, loss of taste and smell, and myalgia. Prolonged symptoms were the following: cough, myalgia, easy fatigability, exertional dyspnea, shortness of breath, hair loss, and diarrhea. The duration of symptoms from onset to resolution ranges from 4.5 weeks to 30 weeks. All individuals with COVID-19, including healthcare workers, are susceptible to long-term COVID, which involves heterogenous symptoms that may last for varying durations.

Recurrent headache as a post-COVID-19 sequela: A case report

@#Post-COVID condition is the presence of new, recurring, or ongoing signs and symptoms for greater than four weeks after a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Persistent headache as a neurologic sequalae of COVID-19 infection is a common prolonged symptom with limited characterization in the literature. This was a case of a 27-year-old female diagnosed with mild COVID-19 who presented with fever, colds, fatigue, headache, decreased hearing, sore throat, dry cough, pleuritic chest pain, anosmia, ageusia, myalgia, and severe low back pain. Headache was described as remitting, frontally located, squeezing and moderate to severe in pain intensity. She was admitted in a tertiary COVID referral hospital for 8 days and was managed supportively. On the 10th day of illness, symptoms had resolved except for an on and off headache. The residual recurrent headache lasted for more than 5 months after being tested negative for SARSCOV2 on repeat reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The possible pathophysiologic mechanisms for neurologic manifestations and prolonged headache were hypoxia, endothelial damage through angiotensin converting enzyme receptor, and cytokine reactions. The characteristics of the symptoms remained unclear despite the proposed mechanisms for prolonged headache among COVID-19 patients.