What does long-Covid mean? Is there a cure? Stellenbosch University tests for vascular damage...

CapeTalk's Lester Kiewit speaks to Professor Resia Pretorius of the Department of Physiological Sciences at Stellenbosch University.

Listen below:

What does long-Covid mean? Pretorius explains...

"It's persistent symptoms after the acute infection. It can start anything from three or four weeks after the acute infection and can continue for months and even years," says Pretorius.

Symptoms are not often diagnosed correctly by clinicians. Patients often approach a doctor, complaining of vague symptoms like anxiety, fatigue or brain fog which some clinicians might not link to long-Covid, especially if the acute infection was a few months or years ago, explains Pretorius.

Stellenbosch University has a bespoke 'BioCode' lab dedicated to Covid-19 and long-Covid research.

Researchers at the lab test for vascular damage, microclots and clotting pathologies using blood samples from patients to learn more about long-Covid.

"It [long-Covid] starts in the acute phase as a respiratory disease, but it also is in that phase starting to become a vascular disease...

"Long-Covid is then a fully-blown vascular disease... and one of the conditions associated with that is the formation of a widespread clotting pathology in your vessels. We believe this clotting pathology and this vascular damage causes all these symptoms which can explain the brain fog right through to other symptoms patients suffer from," explains Pretorius. 

Is there treatment for long-Covid?

"Treatment for long-Covid is not a tested regime... although there are clinical trials underway worldwide," says Pretorius.

For now, a clinician-initiated treatment regime is commonly prescribed for long-Covid symptoms.

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the interview.