Yong, Shin Jie, Liu, Shiliang · Reviews in medical virology · 2022 · DOI
This review examines long COVID (persistent symptoms lasting months after COVID-19 infection) and proposes that it comes in six different subtypes, one of which is ME/CFS-like illness. The authors describe the symptoms and potential treatments for each subtype, helping doctors and patients better understand which type of long COVID a person might have. This framework could help lead to more targeted treatments since different subtypes may need different approaches.
This subtyping framework is important because ME/CFS is explicitly recognized as one distinct form of long COVID with potentially different underlying mechanisms and treatment approaches than other long COVID presentations. For ME/CFS patients and researchers, this validates the disease as a recognizable post-viral syndrome while emphasizing the need for subtype-specific research and treatment strategies rather than one-size-fits-all approaches.
This review does not establish the prevalence of each subtype among long COVID patients, nor does it prove that these six categories are biologically distinct entities. The authors do not present new clinical trial data proving which interventions actually work for each subtype—they only propose potential therapies based on existing literature. The study does not establish causation of the proposed mechanisms.
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
Yong, Shin Jie & Liu, Shiliang (2022). Proposed subtypes of post-COVID-19 syndrome (or long-COVID) and their respective potential therapies.. Reviews in medical virology. https://doi.org/10.1002/rmv.2315
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-yong-2022-proposed-subtypes,
author = {Yong, Shin Jie and Liu, Shiliang},
title = {Proposed subtypes of post-COVID-19 syndrome (or long-COVID) and their respective potential therapies.},
journal = {Reviews in medical virology},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.1002/rmv.2315},
note = {PubMed: 34888989},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/yong-2022-proposed-subtypes},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/yong-2022-proposed-subtypes
Contribute
Private, reviewed by a human. Not a public comment thread.