COVID-19 survivors who lost their sense of taste and smell may have to wait up to a year to fully recover, a new study found.
Researchers followed 97 COVID-19 patients who lost their sense of taste and smell for an entire year and asked them to complete a survey every four months, according to the study published Thursday in JAMA Network Open.
Out of 97 patients, 51 of them also were asked to undergo objective testing to corroborate the self-reported surveys. At eight months, 49 out of the 51 patients had fully recovered their sense of taste and smell.
One of the two patients who had not recovered was able to smell, but abnormally, while the other still couldn’t smell by the end of the study. While 46 COVID-19 patients did not undergo objective testing, they all reported a full recovery after a full year.
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