US psychology researchers have reported a case of a young woman who struggles to recognise faces (prosopagnosia) following Covid-19 infection.

Dartmouth College PhD students Marie-Luise Kieseler and Brad Duchaine said the woman had normal face recognition prior to developing Covid in 2020, but has since been unable to recognise faces, including her father’s. She performed poorly in a famous faces test, a Doppelganger test (to assess her long-term face identity recognition abilities) and two tests of unfamiliar face identity recognition, said Kieseler and Duchaine, adding the patient also reported issues with navigation in shops and car parks.

Results of a survey of 54 individuals with ‘long Covid’ (having symptoms for 12 weeks or more), showed a majority reported reductions in visual recognition and navigation abilities, but none reported prosopagnosia effects, said researchers.