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Background and Aim Because acute infectious gastroenteritis may cause post‐infection irritable bowel syndrome and functional dyspepsia and the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus‐2 affects gastrointestinal (GI) tract, coronavirus disease‐19 (COVID‐19) may cause post‐infection‐functional GI disorders (FGIDs). We prospectively studied the frequency and spectrum of post‐infection‐FGIDs among COVID‐19 and historical healthy controls and the risk factors for its development. Methods Two hundred eighty patients with COVID‐19 and 264 historical healthy controls were followed up at 1 and 3 months using translated validated Rome Questionnaires for the development of chronic bowel dysfunction (CBD), dyspeptic symptoms, and their overlap and at 6‐month for IBS, uninvestigated dyspepsia (UD) and their overlap. Psychological comorbidity was studied using Rome III Psychosocial Alarm Questionnaire. Results At 1 and 3 months, 16 (5.7%), 16 (5.7%), 11 (3.9%), and 24 (8.6%), 6 (2.1%), 9 (3.2%) of COVID‐19 patients developed CBD, dyspeptic symptoms, and their overlap, respectively; among healthy controls, none developed dyspeptic symptoms and one developed CBD at 3 months ( P < 0.05). At 6 months, 15 (5.3%), 6 (2.1%), and 5 (1.8%) of the 280 COVID‐19 patients developed IBS, UD, and IBS‐UD overlap, respectively, and one healthy control developed IBS at 6 months ( P < 0.05 for all except IBS‐UD overlap). The risk factors for post‐COVID‐19 FGIDs at 6 months included symptoms (particularly GI), anosmia, ageusia, and presence of CBD, dyspeptic symptoms, or their overlap at 1 and 3 months and the psychological comorbidity. Conclusions This is the first study showing COVID‐19 led to post‐COVID‐19 FGIDs. Post‐COVID‐19 FGIDs may pose a significant economic, social, and healthcare burden to the world.

The H. pylori infection rate is very high in early infancy in a poor periurban community of Bangladesh. The reason for a drop in the infection rate in late infancy is unclear but could be due to initial clearance of the infection by the body's defence mechanisms but with possible alteration of the gastric mucosa which sustains infection. Maternal education may be protective and may operate through some unidentified proximate behavioural determinants. The rate of H. pylori infection in infants and young children may predispose them to repeated gastrointestinal infection and diarrhoea.

Attendance rates at a diarrhea clinic were monitored in a defined population in rural Bangladesh. Weekly home visits were also carried out to determine diarrheal attacks in communities within six miles of the clinic. Within the first one mile radius, 90 per cent of diarrheal cases came to the clinic for treatment. At two miles the attendance fell to 70 per

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