Mirofsky, Matias, Catalano, Hugo · Medicina · 2024
This article discusses whether Long COVID should be considered a new disease and examines how medical systems can avoid overtreatment. The authors note that Long COVID shares similarities with other post-infection illnesses like ME/CFS and fibromyalgia, and they argue that careful, thoughtful medical care is important to prevent unnecessary treatments from making patients worse.
This editorial is relevant to ME/CFS patients because it acknowledges the clinical overlap between Long COVID and ME/CFS, and emphasizes the importance of avoiding iatrogenic harm through excessive or inappropriate medical interventions—a key concern for both conditions. It supports the legitimacy of post-viral conditions and advocates for careful, evidence-based medical practice.
This editorial does not present original research data or establish causation, diagnostic criteria, or treatment efficacy. It does not prove that Long COVID is definitively a new disease or quantify the prevalence of overtreatment. As a conceptual analysis, it cannot validate specific case definitions or distinguish Long COVID from ME/CFS mechanistically.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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Primary citation
Mirofsky, Matias & Catalano, Hugo (2024). Long COVID: a new disease?. Medicina. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39399934/
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-mirofsky-2024-long-covid,
author = {Mirofsky, Matias and Catalano, Hugo},
title = {Long COVID: a new disease?},
journal = {Medicina},
year = {2024},
note = {PubMed: 39399934},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/mirofsky-2024-long-covid},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/mirofsky-2024-long-covid
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