The Perils Of Long Covid

Doctors warn of the dangers of a lingering post-Covid syndrome that puts patients at risk long after the virus has left their body

- Sonali Acharjee

IN the beginning of April, Covid came knocking for the Bhatias, a family of five, who live in Bengaluru’s Banaswadi neighbourhood. The second wave had yet to assume its brutal proportions; most of the family, including two teenagers aged 18 and 17, got away with cold and fever, their recovery made easier with a five-day course of antibiotics and vitamin supplements. Only their 70-year-old grandmother had to be given steroids, to douse the internal inflammation.

Relieved that they had survived the worst, the Bhatias resumed their normal routine as soon as the symptoms subsided—only to have the nightmare return in two weeks. “My mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s,” says Abhishek Bhatia, 45, a manager at a software engineering firm. “A blood clot had possibly travelled to her brain. She hadn’t been given anti-coagulants during treatment.” Chronic fatigue and body ache prevented his wife from resuming her duties in the kitchen. The children complained of ‘brain fog’, unable to focus or think clearly. Bhatia himself reported lowgrade fever for six days after he tested negative, indicating internal inflammation, and was later found to have blood clots in one hand. “It has been two months since we tested negative, but none of us has the energy to live like we used to,” he says.