One in eight people infected with the coronavirus develops at least one long-lasting symptom of COVID.
More than 500 million coronavirus cases have been recorded worldwide since the pandemic began, raising concerns about persistent symptoms seen in long-standing COVID patients.
However, few existing studies have compared long-term COVID-19 sufferers with those who have never been infected, suggesting that some of the health problems may not be caused by the virus. I have.
New research published in lancet The journal asked more than 76,400 adults in the Netherlands to complete an online questionnaire on 23 common long-term COVID symptoms.
From March 2020 to August 2021, each participant completed the survey 24 times.
During that time, more than 4,200 people (5.5%) reported being infected with COVID.
More than 21% of people with COVID experienced at least one new symptom or severe worsening of symptoms three to five months after becoming infected.
However, nearly 9% of the COVID-free control group reported similar increases in some symptoms.
This suggests that 12.7% (about 1 in 8) of those infected with COVID suffered from long-term symptoms, the study said.
The study also documented symptoms before and after COVID infection, allowing researchers to more accurately identify those associated with the virus.
Common long-term symptoms of COVID were found to include chest pain, difficulty breathing, muscle pain, loss of taste and smell, and general fatigue.
“Great advance”
Alanka Ballering of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, one of the study’s authors, said the long-term COVID was “an urgent problem due to the increasing human suffering.”
“By examining symptoms in uninfected controls and in individuals before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection, we were able to explain symptoms that may be the health consequences of the pandemic’s noncommunicable disease. It’s stress caused by limitations and uncertainty,” she said.
The study’s authors note that its limitations include not covering later variants such as Delta and Omicron, and information on some symptoms such as brain fog, which have long been considered common signs of COVID. This includes items that were not collected.
Another study author, Judith Rosmalen, said: “Future studies could include mental health symptoms such as depression and anxiety, as well as brain fog, insomnia and mild post-exercise fatigue. should include aspects of
UK Leicester University experts Christopher Breitling and Rachel Evans, who were not involved in the study, said it was a “huge advance” over previous long-running COVID studies because there was an uninfected control group. said.
“Encouragingly, new data from other studies” suggest a lower long-term incidence of COVID in people who have been vaccinated or infected with the Omicron variant, they said. says in the linked document. lancet comment.
