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Long COVID and ME/CFS - same or different?

Long COVID and ME/CFS can both result from an infectious viral illness. Long COVID may follow infection with SARS-CoV-2 (a “coronavirus”), while ME/CFS may follow a flu-like illness, infectious mononucleosis (“mono”), or other viral infections.

Both Long COVID and ME/CFS can have many different symptoms and not every person has the same symptoms.

For a diagnosis of ME/CFS, the symptoms must have been present for at least six months at a moderate to severe level. For a diagnosis of Long COVID, symptoms will still be present after 28 days to 3 months. If symptoms are still present after six months, a diagnosis of ME/CFS should be considered in the differential diagnosis of long COVID patients.


Where to find more information:

Characterizing Long COVID…
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248802v2.full.pdf

Will COVID-19 Lead to ME/CFS? 
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2020.606824/full