Abu Dhabi authorities have launched a new tool to determine the possibility of post-COVID-19 syndrome among patients. The Covid-19 Long-Term Effects Dashboard of the Department of Health aims to provide relevant data to facilitate monitoring and follow-up on complications experienced by people recovering from COVID-19 illness. The dashboard will be using artificial intelligence to measure the probability of developing post-Covid-19 syndrome, popularly known as long Covid. It will help researchers in understanding the long-term impact of COVID-19 and other associated diseases.

Suffering from post-Covid-19 syndrome, patients experience persistent symptoms even after recovery from the disease and it may lead to medical complications. Several patients in the UAE have reported of experiencing symptoms of the infection after months of recovery.

According to a study conducted in May last year, a majority of Covid ‘long-haulers’ in the UAE and the region are struggling with chronic fatigue, depression, insomnia and other after-effects. A qualitative research conducted by Arise UAE, an initiative of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, in association with RAK Hospital, named chronic fatigue among the top-most debilitating symptoms experienced by patients struggling with long Covid symptoms in the UAE and Middle East. About 47.5 percent of the patients were reported to be suffering from chronic fatigue.

US-based Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has also reported that some people experience “a range of new or ongoing symptoms that can last weeks or months due to COVID-19 virus.

“Unlike some of the other types of post-Covid conditions that tend only to occur in people who have had severe illness, these symptoms can happen to anyone who has had COVID-19, even if the illness was mild, or if they had no initial symptoms,” the public health agency has said on its website.

Some of the symptoms of long Covid include shortness of breath, fatigue, cough, headache and joint or muscle pain, among others.