Up to 1.6 million people in the US have had their sense of taste and smell affected long term by COVID-19

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-11-19 03:00

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A loss of ability to smell or taste is a common symptom of COVID-19, and US researchers believe between 700,000 and 1.6 million people in the country are still experiencing this more than six months after their infection. Chronic Olfactory Dysfunction (COD), a reduced or distorted ability to taste and smell, can lead to difficulties eating, the inability to detect dangerous gas or smoke and poorer mental health, the researchers say. Analysing US COVID-19 data, the researchers estimated how prevalent COD was likely to be based on previous research suggesting about 52.7 per cent of COVID-19 patients have their sense of smell and taste impacted, and about 95.3 per cent of those people get it back in time.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Washington University School of Medicine, USA

Funder: Dr Kallogjeri reported stock in Potentia Metrics and personal fees from JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery outside the submitted work. Dr Piccirillo reported receiving consulting fees from BIND-On-Demand Health Insurance. Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Center For Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number TL1TR002344. No other disclosures were reported.

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