Vaccines, variants, natural immunity and better treatment options mean catching Covid-19 now isn’t the same as it was a year or two ago. But for millions of people who contracted the virus even in the pandemic’s first months, the impact of the disease lingers. As many as one in five adults who recovered from a Covid-19 infection have experienced at least one medical condition relating to long Covid, according to a study published, reports CNN.
Symptoms
The most common conditions among all adults were respiratory symptoms and musculoskeletal pain, the researchers found. Covid patients were also twice as likely as other people to have conditions affecting the lungs.
Estimates of the frequency of long-term symptoms of Covid range from 5% to 80%, according to the CDC. The World Health Organization’s estimates range from 10% to 20%.
Analysis
CDC researchers analyzed medical records for more than 350,000 people who tested positive between March 2020 and November 2021, so their new study provides a valuable clue to understanding the prevalence of the condition.
Another development came from a Scottish study, published on Monday, which found that more severe cases of Covid-19 can cause long-term damage to a range of organs.
Heart inflammation was found to be an ongoing problem for one in eight patients who were hospitalized with Covid-19, according to the study, which followed the progress of 159 people for a year after their hospital stay.
Consequences
Inflammation across the body and damage to the kidneys were also common. And the study supported other research that indicated women are more at risk of suffering from long Covid than men.
“COVID-19 is a multi-system disease, and our study shows that injury on the heart, lungs and kidneys can be seen after initial hospitalisation in scans and blood tests,” Colin Berry, the cardiology professor who led the University of Glasgow study, said. He added that their findings “bridge a vital knowledge gap” in our understanding of long Covid.
Earlier research suggests that a small portion of people who now live with long Covid may have shown no Covid-19 symptoms at all when they were initially infected — or have had mild or unusual symptoms.
Last month, US President Joe Biden unveiled a new push to detect and treat long Covid, including raising awareness of the condition as a potential cause of disability.
But the one thing that is certain is that long Covid is unpredictable and, even this deep into the pandemic, it remains something of a scientific enigma.
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Source: CNN
