“Time seems to cure long Covid.”

Mr. Tilge, you have gained surprising insights into the causes and course of long Covid in a way that is unusual in pathology.
It is unusual that in a group of patients who had chronic inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, we also had several people with Long Covid. This gave us the opportunity to look for residual coronaviruses in the intestines during routine colonoscopy for intestinal diseases. During regular follow-up endoscopic examinations, we were able to check for possible viral remnants again every two years.

How many patients participated in the study?
We started with 46 patients. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it's a very large group for this very specific question. Of these 46, 32 still had virus remnants in their intestines during their first colonoscopy seven months after severe coronavirus infection. Two-thirds of them, 21 years old, were suffering from mild to moderate long-term Covid symptoms. The infected people are not seriously ill, but they suffer from severe weakness. Weakness, extreme fatigue and exhaustion. Such cases constitute the majority of those suffering from long Covid.