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Review
. 2025 May 21;17(3):56.
doi: 10.3390/idr17030056.

Long COVID: A Systematic Review of Preventive Strategies

Sun O Park  1 , Neha Nanda  1
Affiliations
Review

Long COVID: A Systematic Review of Preventive Strategies

Sun O Park et al. Infect Dis Rep. .

Abstract

Background: Since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in December 2019, long COVID (LC) has become a significant global health burden. While knowledge about LC is accumulating, studies on its prevention are still lacking. Methods: We conducted a systematic review following the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines to investigate prevention options for LC. We identified fifteen articles on vaccines, seven on antivirals, and six on other interventions after searching for articles in the PubMed/MEDLINE database using the MeSH terms. Results: Most vaccine-related studies demonstrated a protective effect of COVID-19 vaccines against developing LC. Our review found an equivocal effect of antivirals, while metformin had a protective effect in outpatients and corticosteroids were protective in hospitalized patients against LC. Conversely, COVID-19 convalescent plasma and multiple micronutrient supplement did not confer any protection against LC. Conclusions: COVID-19 vaccination is vital as it not only prevents COVID-19 but also reduces the severity of illness and may help prevent LC. Further studies are warranted to shed light on preventive strategies for long COVID.

Keywords: COVID-19; long COVID; post-COVID-19 conditions (PCCs); post-acute COVID-19 syndrome (PACS); post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC); prevention.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA diagram showing selection of studies for review.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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