World Sleep 2022 | COVID-19 and narcolepsy: the same incident as swine flu?

Mink Schinkelshoek, MD, PhD, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands, discusses the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and narcolepsy. The scientific sleep community were interested in the effect of COVID-19 on narcolepsy following the results of the swine flu pandemic – which created a spike in narcolepsy cases. However, with two years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, those same signals have not been detected. Dr Schinkelshoek comments that COVID-19 is not thought to be causing narcolepsy. This interview took place at the World Sleep Congress in Rome, Italy.