This Tool May Be Useful For Some To Help Advise Their Patients.

This appeared last week:

COVID-19 Risk Calculator expanded

GPs can now use the tool to undertake a personalised assessment for patients’ risk of developing long COVID-19 six months after infection.

Michelle Wisbey

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01 Aug 2024

Globally, at least 65 million people are thought to suffer from long COVID-19.

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Healthcare professionals are set to be aided in their assessments of long COVID-19 after a popular risk calculator was updated to include the condition.
 
The online COVID-19 Risk Calculator’s (CoRiCal) expansion was announced on Thursday and now includes a personalised risk assessment of developing long COVID-19 six months after infection.
 
The calculator takes into account a range of personal factors including age, sex, comorbidities, vaccination status, number of previous infections and use of antiviral medications.
 
CoRiCal was developed early in the pandemic to provide clinicians, and patients, with a shared decision-making tool to help determine the possible risks and benefits of having a COVID-19 vaccine and booster.
 
In its latest update, the long COVID-19 calculator was specifically designed to assess the risks of going to hospital or an intensive care unit with the condition, and of having it six months after catching COVID-19.
 
And the impact of living with long COVID-19 is something Kylie Trounson knows all too well.
 
A busy Melbourne lawyer, Ms Trounson was struck down with the illness more than two years ago and its impacts continue to be devastating.
 
‘I started having really extreme symptoms that I couldn’t explain – I woke up in the middle of the night with my heart racing, I had a heart monitor, and it was at 190 beats per minute while I was lying down,’ she told newsGP.
 
‘I had a such a severe form of it that I lost my identity, so I wasn’t a mum, I wasn’t a lawyer, I wasn’t a partner, I wasn’t a daughter, I was just someone who could lie in bed.
 
‘My GP was my anchor at that point … now that most of the long COVID clinics are not available, the importance of GPs is huge.’
 
The project’s co-lead, and former RACGP Expert Committee – Quality Care Deputy Chair, Associate Professor John Litt said the expanded tool will help GPs to introduce earlier interventions to mitigate the disease’s severity and duration.
 
‘While the median duration is about four months or so, that means 50% of people will have symptoms for longer than four months,’ he told newsGP.
 
‘The GP feedback is it’s even quite complex for them to understand and their time is really precious.
 
‘What we’ve done with this one is we’ve actually brought in the comorbidities, and there are quite a few comorbidities that increase the risk of the severity of COVID, and they increase your risk of long COVID.’
 
University of Queensland Associate Professor Kirsty Short said at least 65 million people globally are thought to suffer from long COVID-19, which can cause more than 200 symptoms across 10 different organ systems.
 
‘Incomplete vaccination, missed drug treatment during acute infection, and repeat infections are the greatest controllable influencers that increase risk, so there are actions you can take right now to reduce that,’ she said.
 
‘Health managers and individuals in conjunction with clinicians can use the risk assessment tool for shared decision making on vaccination, infection-avoidant behaviours and pursuing early treatment during acute infection.’
 
Associate Professor Litt said while many adults do not see COVID as a big issue, many remain concerned about getting long COVID.
 
‘The chance of suffering long COVID increases with every bout of COVID-19 a person catches,’ he said.
 
‘The vaccines are continuing to provide benefit, but it’d be great if they provided a longer-term benefit against getting infected or passing it on to people who are vulnerable.
 
‘Clearly vaccination has largely been the primary cause which has led to a substantive reduction in long COVID, so that’s the good news, the bad news is we don’t have a definitive treatment.’
 
The tool was designed by a team of experts from Flinders University, the Queensland University of Technology, the University of Sydney and the Immunisation Coalition, and included input from GPs and clinicians.

Here is the link:

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/covid-19-risk-calculator-expanded

This may be useful to know about to ask your GP for an assessment if you are concerned!

David.