Salari, Nader, Khodayari, Yassaman, Hosseinian-Far, Amin et al. · BioPsychoSocial medicine · 2022 · DOI
Researchers looked at 52 studies involving over 127,000 people who had recovered from COVID-19 to see how many developed chronic fatigue. They found that about 45% of long COVID patients experienced persistent fatigue lasting at least four weeks after infection. This fatigue can significantly impact daily life, work, and relationships.
This study quantifies a substantial overlap between long COVID and ME/CFS symptoms, suggesting that post-viral fatigue syndromes may share common pathophysiological mechanisms. The high prevalence (45%) underscores the urgent need for clinical recognition, diagnosis, and research funding to understand and treat post-viral fatigue in both populations.
This study does not prove that long COVID-related fatigue is identical to ME/CFS or shares the same underlying cause—it only documents symptom overlap. The meta-analysis cannot establish causation or mechanism, nor does it clarify whether COVID-19 triggers ME/CFS in susceptible individuals or produces a distinct post-viral syndrome. Heterogeneity across studies and varying case definitions weaken confidence in the exact prevalence figure.
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 →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Salari, Nader, Khodayari, Yassaman, Hosseinian-Far, Amin, Zarei, Hosna, Rasoulpoor, Shabnam, Akbari, Hakimeh, et al. (2022). Global prevalence of chronic fatigue syndrome among long COVID-19 patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis.. BioPsychoSocial medicine. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13030-022-00250-5
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-salari-2022-global-prevalence,
author = {Salari, Nader and Khodayari, Yassaman and Hosseinian-Far, Amin and Zarei, Hosna and Rasoulpoor, Shabnam and Akbari, Hakimeh and Mohammadi, Masoud},
title = {Global prevalence of chronic fatigue syndrome among long COVID-19 patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis.},
journal = {BioPsychoSocial medicine},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.1186/s13030-022-00250-5},
note = {PubMed: 36274177},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/salari-2022-global-prevalence},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-27. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/salari-2022-global-prevalence
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