Coronavirus: Severe COVID-19 patients can report symptoms for at least 2 years, finds Lancet study

When it comes to long COVID, there is no definite answer to who is likely to get it or how long one can experience the symptoms for, since studies have brought to light different equations.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people who develop a mild case of COVID-19 usually recover in one to two weeks, whereas in severe COVID patients, it could take six weeks or more.

However, a recent study published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine suggests at least half of the people hospitalized due to COVID suffer from one or more symptoms two years after the infection.

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The study involved 1,192 participants in China, who were infected with the SARs-COV-2 virus during the first phase of COVID outbreak in 2020 i.e. between January 7 and May 29, 2020. The researchers followed up with the group of patients at six months, 12 months, and two years, wherein they found that half of people hospitalised with the infection have at least one symptom two years after infection.

“Our findings indicate that for a certain proportion of hospitalized Covid-19 survivors, while they may have cleared the initial infection, more than two years is needed to recover fully. Ongoing follow-up of Covid-19 survivors, particularly those with symptoms of long Covid, is essential to understand the longer course of the illness, as is further exploration of the benefits of rehabilitation programmes for recovery,” says professor Bin Cao of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in China and the lead author of the study.

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Findings of the study suggest physical and mental health gradually improved irrespective of initial disease severity, with 55 percent of the patients showing at least one symptom caused by initial infection at two years compared to 68 percent at six months.

"Regardless of initial disease severity, COVID-19 survivors had longitudinal improvements in physical and mental health, with most returning to their original work within 2 years; however, the burden of symptomatic sequelae remained fairly high," the study revealed.

"COVID-19 survivors had a remarkably lower health status than the general population at 2 years. The study findings indicate that there is an urgent need to explore the pathogenesis of long COVID and develop effective interventions to reduce the risk of long COVID," it added.

Furthermore, the findings highlighted the urgent need to investigate the "pathogenesis of long COVID and develop effective intervention strategies to reduce the risk of long COVID."

"Ongoing follow-up of COVID-19 survivors, particularly those with symptoms of long COVID, is essential to understand the longer course of the illness, as is further exploration of the benefits of rehabilitation programmes for recovery. There is a clear need to provide continued support to a significant proportion of people who've had Covid-19, and to understand how vaccines, emerging treatments, and variants affect long-term health outcomes," says prof. Bin Cao.

The researchers from the study found that COVID-19 patients seemed to have poorer health and quality of life than the general population.

Additionally, some of the long term, persistent symptoms that came to light included fatigue, shortness of breath, and sleep difficulties. 31 percent of the total participants reported fatigue or muscle weakness and the same percentage complained of sleep difficulties.