A study of thousands of people in Scotland found that 1 in 20 people who were sick with COVID-19 reported no recovery at all, and another 4 in 10 said they recovered from their infection several months later. Haven’t fully recovered.
The authors of the study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications, tried to build on the long-term risks of COVID-19 by comparing the frequency of symptoms in people with and without previous covid Diagnosis.
People with previous symptomatic COVID infection reported some persistent symptoms, such as breathlessness, palpitations and confusion or difficulty concentrating, about three times more often than uninfected people surveyed 6 to 18 months later , the study found. Those patients also experienced an increased risk of cardiovascular, respiratory health, muscle pain, mental health and more than 20 other symptoms related to the sensory system.
Findings strengthen calls from scientists for more elaborate care options in the long run covid Patients in the United States and elsewhere, while also delivering some good news.
The study did not identify a higher risk of long-term problems in people with asymptomatic coronavirus infection. It also found that in a very limited subset of participants who had been given at least one dose of the COVID vaccine prior to their infection, that vaccination appeared to help reduce, if not eliminate, the risk of some prolonged COVID symptoms. .
The study found that people with severe early COVID cases were at higher risk of long-term problems.
Dr. Ziad Al-Aly, head of research at the VA St. Louis Health Care System, said, “The beauty of this study is that they have a control group, and they can isolate the proportion of symptomatology that is associated with COVID-19.” due to infection.” a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, who was not involved in the research.
The study did not identify a higher risk of long-term problems in people with asymptomatic coronavirus infection (Source: Getty Images)
“It also tracks with the broader idea that long-term COVID is actually a multisystem disorder,” said Al-Ali, one that “remains not only in the brain, not only in the heart — it’s all of the above.”
Jill Pell, a professor of public health at the University of Glasgow who led the research, said the findings offered support for long-term COVID patients that extends beyond health care and relates to jobs, education, poverty and disability. Also addresses needs.
“It told us that covid can appear different in different individuals, and it can have more than one effect on your life,” Pell said. “Any approach to supporting people must, first of all, be personal and also holistic. needed. The answer is not only in the health care sector.”
Long COVID refers to a group of problems that can plague patients for months or longer after an infection. Over the past year, researchers have focused more on understanding the difficult consequences as the number of COVID cases exploded and health systems learn to better manage the early stages of infection.
US government estimates have indicated that between 7.7 million and 23 million people in the United States may be covid,
Globally, “the situation is ravaging people’s lives and livelihoods,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, wrote in an article Wednesday for The Guardian. Called for “continuous action”.
The authors of the study in Scotland tracked 33,000 people who tested positive for the virus starting in April 2020 and 63,000 people who had never been diagnosed with COVID. Over a six-month span, those people were asked about any symptoms they had, including fatigue, muscle aches, chest pain and neurological problems, and any difficulties with daily living.
By comparing the frequency of those problems with those of infected and uninfected people, the researchers tried to address a challenge that many other longtime COVID researchers have faced: how to describe less specific symptoms. covid When those problems are also common in the general population and can become prevalent in the middle of an epidemic.
One-fifth to one-third of the most common prolonged COVID symptoms identified in the study were also reported by participants who had never been infected (Source: Getty Images)
The most common chronic COVID symptoms identified in the study were also reported by one-fifth to one-third of participants who had never been infected, the study found. But symptoms were significantly more common among people who had previously had COVID: Those participants were more likely to report 24 of the 26 symptoms tracked by the study.
Of the previous COVID cases, 6% said in their most recent follow-up survey that they had not recovered at all and 42% said they were only partially cured.
Pell said he was still long . was studying the trajectory of symptoms of covid in the months and years following infection. But the new study opens a small window on that question. In a group of already infected patients, about 13% said their symptoms had improved over time, while about 11% said they had worsened.
“Some resolve with time,” Al-Aly said, “but there are also a good number of people who remain symptomatic for a long time with a cluster of manifestations.”
Only a small fraction of study participants – about 4% – had been Vaccination before their infection, and many of them with only one dose.
“We’re now really relying heavily on vaccination,” Pell said, “which provides some protection, but it’s not absolute.”
Women, older people and those living in poor areas also faced more severe consequences from the infection. So, too, did those who suffered from pre-existing health problems, including respiratory diseases and depression.
9 out of 10 study participants were white, making it more difficult to determine how and why COVID risk may have varied over long periods of time between racial and ethnic groups.
Scientists said health systems are still working to recover from recent COVID surges while still facing an onslaught of patients with flu and other respiratory illnesses, compared to patients suffering from earlier coronavirus infections. The treatment required significantly more resources, the scientists said.
“Our systems are not ready,” Al-Aly said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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