One in eight adults (12.7%) who become infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus experience long-term symptoms, known as persistent COVID, a new study from the Netherlands in the US has found. in which 76,422 individuals with an average age of 53.7 years have participated, of whom 60.8% were women, and which has just been published in the prestigious scientific journal The Lancet.
Professor Judith Rosmalen from the University of Groningen and lead author of the study, explained: “Our study approach looks at the symptoms that are most often associated with prolonged COVID, including respiratory problems, fatigue and loss of taste and smell, both before a diagnosis of COVID-19, and in people who have not been diagnosed with COVID-19. This method allows us to take into account pre-existing symptoms and symptoms in uninfected people to offer an improved working definition for prolonged COVID and provide a reliable estimate of the likelihood that COVID-19 will last in the general population.”
The researchers compared the frequency of new or considered severe symptoms in a population group that had not been infected with the coronavirus, with people who had been diagnosed with COVID-19, which allowed a more reliable estimate of the prevalence of the coronavirus. prolonged COVID than in previous studies. Data was collected through digital questionnaires on 23 symptoms commonly associated with prolonged COVID-19.
This questionnaire was sent 24 times to the same people between March 2020 and August 2021, meaning that participants who had COVID-19 during this time had been infected with the alpha variant of SARS-CoV-2, or earlier variants. . Most of the data was collected before the COVID-19 vaccines were launched in the Netherlands, so the number of vaccinated participants was insignificant and was not taken into account.
Participants were recorded as COVID-19 positive if they had a positive test or medical diagnosis of COVID-19. Of 76,422 participants, 4,231 (5.5%) individuals with COVID-19 were compared with 8,462 controls taking into account gender, age, and time of completion of questionnaires indicating a diagnosis of COVID-19.
“These core symptoms have important implications for future research as they can be used to distinguish between post-COVID-19 condition and non-COVID-19 related symptoms.”
Of the participants who had presented pre-COVID symptom data, they found that 21.4% of COVID-19 positive participants, compared to 8.7% of the control group, experienced at least an increase in symptoms. central symptoms of moderate severity three months or more after infection, which means that in 12.7% of patients with COVID-19, their new or increased severity symptoms three months after COVID can be attributed to infection by SARS-CoV-2.
Core symptoms of persistent COVID
The researchers also analyzed the symptoms of the participants before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection, and this allowed them to identify the core symptoms of persistent COVID: chest pain, shortness of breath, pain when breathing, muscle pain, loss of consciousness. taste and smell, tingling in the extremities, a lump in the throat, sensations of heat and cold, heaviness in the arms or legs, and general tiredness.
The severity of these symptoms stabilized three months after infection and did not decrease further. Other symptoms that did not significantly increase three to five months after a COVID-19 diagnosis included headache, itchy eyes, dizziness, back pain, and nausea. Aranka Ballering, candidate and first author of the study explained: “These core symptoms have important implications for future research, as they can be used to distinguish between post-COVID-19 condition and symptoms not related to COVID-19.”
Ballering adds: “By looking at symptoms in an uninfected control group and in individuals before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection, we were able to explain symptoms that may have been the result of health aspects of non-infectious diseases of the pandemic, such as the stress caused by restrictions and uncertainty.”
Professor Judith Rosmalen concludes: “Future research should include mental health symptoms (for example, depression and anxiety symptoms), along with additional post-infectious symptoms that we were unable to assess in this study (such as mental confusion, insomnia, and post-morbid malaise). -effort). We were unable to investigate what might cause any of the symptoms seen after COVID-19 in this study, but we hope that future research can provide insights into the mechanisms involved. to assess the effect of vaccination against COVID-19 and the different variants of SARS-CoV-2 on prolonged symptoms of COVID-19. We hope that future studies will provide answers about the impacts of these factors.”
.
