The 56-year-old, who contracted the disease in the spring of 2020, had not yet recovered some 18 months later when he killed himself at his home near Dallas, having lost his health, memory and money. “No one cares. No one wants to take the time to listen,” Taylor wrote in a final text to a friend, referring to the plight of millions of long-term COVID sufferers, a disabling condition that can last months and years after the initial contamination. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Taylor added. Long-term COVID is a complex medical condition that can be difficult to diagnose as it has a range of more than 200 symptoms – some of which can resemble other illnesses – from exhaustion and cognitive impairment to pain, fever and heart palpitations , according to World Health. Organization. There are no valid data on the frequency of suicide among sufferers. Several scientists from organizations including the US National Institutes of Health and Britain’s data collection agency are beginning to study a possible link after evidence of increased cases of depression and suicidal thoughts in people with prolonged COVID-19, as well as a rising number of known deaths. “I’m sure that for a long time, COVID has been associated with suicidal thoughts, with suicide attempts, with suicide plans and the risk of suicide. We just don’t have the epidemiological data,” said Leo Sher, a psychiatrist at Mount Sinai Health System in New. York who studies mood disorders and suicidal behavior. Among the key questions researchers are now looking at: is the risk of suicide among patients potentially increased because the virus is changing the biology of the brain? Or does losing their ability to function as they once did push people over the edge, as can happen with other long-term health conditions? Sher said pain disorders in general were a very strong predictor of suicide, as was inflammation in the brain, which several studies have linked to long-term COVID. “We should take it seriously,” he added. An analysis for Reuters conducted by Seattle-based health data company Truveta showed that patients with long-term COVID were almost twice as likely to first receive an antidepressant prescription within 90 days of their initial COVID diagnosis compared to people who had only diagnosed with COVID. The analysis was based on data from 20 major US hospital systems, including more than 1.3 million adults with a diagnosis of COVID and 19,000 with a long-term diagnosis of COVID between May 2020 and July 2022.

“WE DON’T KNOW THE GRADE”

The potential long-term effects of COVID-19 are poorly understood, with governments and scientists only now beginning to systematically study the region as it emerges from a pandemic that itself blindsided much of the world. While many patients with COVID-19 recover over time, about 15% still have symptoms after 12 months, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. There is no proven cure and the debilitating symptoms can leave sufferers unable to work. The consequences of long-term COVID potentially linked to an increased risk of mental illness and suicide are severe. In America alone, the condition has affected as many as 23 million people, the US Government Accountability Office estimated in March. The lingering coronavirus has also pushed about 4.5 million out of work, equal to about 2.4 percent of the U.S. workforce, employment expert Katie Bach of the Brookings Institution told Congress in July. Worldwide, nearly 150 million people are estimated to have developed long-term COVID during the first two years of the pandemic, according to the IHME. In many developing countries, the lack of surveillance of COVID makes the picture even murkier, said Murad Khan, a professor of psychiatry at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan, who is part of an international team of experts investigating the risk of suicide linked to COVID-19. “We have a huge problem, but we don’t know the extent of the problem,” he said.

HITTING POINT

Time is a scarce commodity for a growing number of long-term COVID-19 sufferers who say they are running out of hope and money, according to Reuters interviews with several dozen patients, family members and disease experts. Longtime COVID-19 sufferer Lauren Nichols takes a break from work to read her blood oxygen levels and heart rate from a machine on her finger at her home in Andover, Massachusetts, US, 3 August 2022. REUTERS/Lauren Owens Lambert read more For Taylor, who lost his job selling genomic tests to doctors in a round of layoffs in the summer of 2020, the tipping point came when his insurance coverage through his former employer was about to expire and his application for Social Security benefits was denied. . the family said. “It was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said his older brother Mark Taylor. Heidi Ferrer, a 50-year-old television writer originally from Kansas, committed suicide in May 2021 to escape the terrors and excruciating pain that left her unable to walk or sleep after contracting COVID for more than a year earlier, her husband Nick Gute said. Guthe, a filmmaker who has become an advocate for long-term COVID sufferers since his wife’s death, said that until last winter, he hadn’t heard of any other suicides in the long-term COVID patient network. “Now they come on a weekly basis,” he added. Survivor Corps, an advocacy group for long-term COVID patients, said it polled its members in May and found that 44 percent of nearly 200 respondents said they had considered suicide. Lauren Nichols, a board member of the COVID-19 support group Body Politic, said that through her contact with family members on social media she knew of more than 50 people with long-term COVID who had killed themselves, although Reuters could not independently confirm the cases. . Nichols, 34, a logistics specialist for the U.S. Department of Transportation in Boston, says she has thought about suicide many times because of the long-term COVID, which she has suffered for more than two years. Exit International advises English speakers on how to seek help with assisted dying in Switzerland, where euthanasia is legal with some controls. Fiona Stewart, director, said the agency, which does not track outcomes after counseling, had received several dozen inquiries from long-term COVID patients during the pandemic and was now receiving about one a week.

LONG COVID AND OMICRON

The US National Institutes of Health is tracking mental health effects as part of the $470 million RECOVER study on long-term COVID-19. The first results on rates of anxiety and depression are expected in early September, but information on suicide will take longer, said Dr. Stuart Katz, lead researcher. “What we know is that people with chronic illnesses are prone to suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, and suicide completion,” said Richard Gallagher, associate professor of child psychiatry at NYU Langone Health, who is involved in RECOVER. On the question of whether the virus changes the brain, Gallagher said there is some evidence that COVID can cause brain inflammation — which has been linked to suicide and depression — even in people who have had a relatively mild illness. “There may be immediate, in some ways, toxic effects of the virus, and part of it will be inflammation,” he said. Long-term COVID on average reduces overall health by 21% — similar to total deafness or a traumatic brain injury, the University of Washington IHME found. Although some experts expected Omicron to be less likely to cause long-term COVID, official UK figures released this month found that 34% of the country’s 2 million chronic COVID sufferers developed their symptoms after being infected with Omicron. A UK government advisory group is studying the risk of suicide for long-term COVID patients compared to the wider population, while the country’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) is investigating whether it can estimate a COVID-19 patient’s suicide risk in advance as it does for people with other diseases, such as cancer. “Health conditions that cause long-term disability can increase the risk of suicide, hence the concern about long-term COVID,” said Louis Appleby, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Manchester and an adviser to the British government. Indeed, research in Britain and Spain found a six-fold increased risk of suicide in patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), another post-viral illness with similar symptoms to long-term COVID, compared to the general population. Britain’s network of long-term COVID treatment centers is also drastically oversubscribed, adding to a sense of hopelessness for some. In June, the latest month on record, only a third of patients received an appointment within six weeks of being referred by their local GP and another third had to wait more than 15 weeks. Ruth Oshikanlu, a former midwife and health visitor in London turned pregnancy coach, said the long-term health problems of COVID combined to push her over the edge. When her business went out of business due to debt issues after she found it difficult to work, she felt her life was over. “I was crying to the accountant and the guy put me on hold – I think he didn’t want to be the last person to talk to me,” the 48-year-old recalled. “What COVID gives you is a lot of time to think,” he said. “I didn’t think about ending it, thankfully, because of my son. But I know so many people who have had those suicidal thoughts.” Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Jennifer Rigby in London. Edited by Michele Gershberg and Pravin Char Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.