「体の半分に感覚ない」　メキシコの医療現場、コロナ後遺症への対応課題に

【メキシコ市ＡＦＰ＝時事】メキシコ人のアレリ・トーレスさん（31）が新型コロナウイルスに感染した時、発熱と頭痛の症状は数日で消えた。しかし、医師らが長きにわたる後遺症を正しく診断するまで、7か月かかったという。メキシコでは今、医療現場が長期の後遺症に苦しむ患者への対応に追われている。（写真は資料写真）
　エンジニアのトーレスさんは昨年６月、新型コロナに感染。最もひどい症状は４日ほどで治まったが、感染から１か月後、体の一部の感覚がなくなり始めた。現在、最も強い違和感は脚に出ている。
　トーレスさんは「すべてが不確かで、すべてが試練だ。４人の医師の診察を受けた」と話す。
　医師の一人は不安が原因だとみて、抗うつ薬を処方した。トーレスさんはセラピーにヨガ、運動を試したが、それでも「体の半分に感覚がない状態」が続いたという。
　今月になってようやく、別の医師が新型コロナウイルスによる神経系の炎症が原因だと突き止めた。
　公式の統計によると、人口およそ１億２６００万人のメキシコでは少なくとも１６０万人が新型コロナウイルス感染症から回復し、約１８万４０００人が死亡した。
　後遺症に苦しんだ人の数に関するデータはない。しかし、医師らは次第に、当初は症状が軽かった人も、後遺症が出るリスクがあるとの見方を示している。
　症状は呼吸器や胃腸、腎臓、肝臓、神経系に表れ、倦怠（けんたい）感や筋力の低下、神経系の疾患、不安感に直面することもあるという。
　世界保健機関（ＷＨＯ）は今週、各国政府に対し、新型コロナの後遺症に関する調査を優先的に行うよう求めた。ＷＨＯによると、新型コロナウイルス感染症にかかった人のうち１０人に１人は１２週間が経過しても体調がすぐれず、症状がさらに長期化するケースも多いという。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/03/01-12:04）

After Areli Torres caught the coronavirus, the fever and headache disappeared in a few days, but she says it took seven months for Mexican doctors to correctly diagnose the debilitating long-term effects.
Her case illustrates the huge challenge that the country's already overwhelmed health system faces helping people with long Covid -- the symptoms that sometimes linger long after the infection.
Torres, a 31-year-old engineer, fell ill with the coronavirus last June but the worst of her initial symptoms lasted only four days.
She tested positive three times up to August but decided to try to return to her normal life.
A month after she was infected, however, parts of her body began to go numb.
Now, it is one of her legs that gives her the most discomfort.
Everything's uncertain. Everything's been an ordeal. I've seen four doctors, Torres said.
The first doctor, from the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), concluded that it was anxiety and prescribed antidepressants.
Two private doctors, including a neurologist, agreed with that diagnosis.
Torres tried therapy, yoga and exercise but still half her body was numb, she said.
- 'Be patient' -
It was in February that another doctor identified the problem as inflammation of the nervous system as a result of the coronavirus.
Among other things she was advised to be patient, although by then she had already had to postpone her wedding.
At least 1.6 million people have survived Covid-19 and around 184,000 have died from it in Mexico, a country of 126 million, according to official figures.
Limited testing means that in reality, both figures are likely to be significantly higher.
There is no data on the number who are have suffered long-term effects.
In October, a senior health ministry official said that less than five percent of those who became seriously ill needed respiratory rehabilitation.
But doctors are increasingly taking the view that people who initially experience mild symptoms are also at risk of suffering from long Covid.
It's not only those who were severely or critically ill, as we first thought, who will develop after-effects, said Maria Isabel Jaime, deputy head of the IMSS's physical medicine and rehabilitation unit, told AFP.
She said they were also seeing patients who develop after-effects a few weeks after overcoming a moderate illness.
Those symptoms include respiratory, gastrointestinal, kidney, liver and nervous system issues, as well as fatigue, muscle weakness, neurological disorders and anxiety.
The World Health Organization this week urged governments to make a priority of understanding the long-term effects of coronavirus infections.
About one in 10 Covid-19 sufferers remain unwell after 12 weeks, and many for much longer, the WHO said.
- 'Looking for answers' -
Some units of the IMSS and the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases (INER) offer pulmonary rehabilitation therapies, but they cannot help everyone who needs it.
The Mexican social security system has about 20 million members and gives other forms of medical cover to another eight million people.
Leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says that his government inherited a health system weakened by years of neglect.
At the start of the pandemic, Mexico had a shortage of 200,000 doctors and 300,000 nurses, according to official figures, so the government went on a hiring spree.
It also scrambled to adapt almost a thousand hospitals to care for Covid-19 patients, suspended transplant operations for several months, and generally reduced care for patients with other serious conditions.
The government says that 75 billion pesos ($3.6 billion) has been invested in the sector during the crisis.
Even so, the infrastructure to care for patients with long Covid is probably not enough to meet all the demand, Jose Luis Alomia, the health ministry's director of epidemiology, acknowledged in December.
For long haulers like Torres, there are still a lot of unknowns about why the illness that she thought she had beaten, refuses to go away.
There's a lot of ignorance about the consequences or persistent symptoms of Covid-19. I'm still looking for answers, she said.