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Health Check: Long Covid – the latest

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Woman resting after running wearing a face mask

2022/10/26 GMT

Long Covid – the latest

BBC World Service - Health Check, Long Covid – the latest

What doctors still don’t know about Long Covid

The global rise of life-threatening fungal infections; Long Covid the great unknowns; mental health in Chile; health risks of nitrous oxide.

Health-threatening fungal infections are on the rise and the World Health Organisation identifies the pathogens which pose the greatest risk to human health. Dr Graham Easton, family doctor and Professor of Medical Education at Queen Mary, University of London, tells Claudia how growing resistance to anti-fungal medication resistance, just like antibiotic resistance, is making the problem even worse. Graham also highlights growing health concerns about the recreational use of the drug Nitrous Oxide or laughing gas around the world.

One hundred and fifty million people are thought to have Long Covid, debilitating symptoms which persist long after Covid-19 infection, yet the condition is still little understood. To spell out what we do, and don’t, know about Long Covid, a patient and a professor have got together to write The Long Covid Handbook. Patient advocate and film maker Gez Medinger and Professor of Immunology at Imperial College, London, Danny Altman, describe the gaps in medical knowledge and the impact on sufferers of the slow progress on diagnostics and treatment.

A recent survey in Chile revealed mental health to be the top health concern in the country. Jane Chambers reports on a Santiago charity called the Itaca Foundation, finding great success by pairing up vulnerable younger people with older people for mutual support. 

Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Producer: Fiona Hill

(Picture: A woman resting after running with a protective face mask in the city. Photo credit: Drazen Zigic/Getty Images.)

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