Long COVID: Study finds more than 50% do not recover even after a year

A massive large-scale study of 1 lakh people has found that 42% of COVID patients do not actually recover even a year after the infection. Long COVID is a menace and it is being addressed at a global level currently.

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) along with other health agencies has taken cognisance of this serious health condition which happens after a COVID infection and plagues the infected person’s quality of life for months and even years.

Long COVID is not a clearly defined set of diseases or symptoms. Research studies have found more than 50 signs of long COVID.

Of the total 102473 participants who were invited for the study, 6235 were excluded who had only negative tests recorded but self-reported they had tested positive. Hence, the study cohort comprised 96,238 participants.

The study comprised 39% male and the median age of participants was 45 years. Of the total participants 30% had at least one pre-existing health condition and 16% at least two; 4% had received at least one COVID-19 vaccination dose.

Going precisely with the Scottish study report, almost half of those infected reported no, or incomplete, recovery. It said six and 18 months after infection, 1 in 20 people had not recovered and 42 percent reported partial recovery.

The study is a huge support for those who have been warning people and governments about long COVID.

It sheds light on the long term burden of COVID and provides concrete evidence with its large cohort study.

The study says that symptomatic COVID infection is associated with "a wide range of persistent symptoms, impaired daily activities and reduced health-related quality of life", "the strongest associations were observed for symptoms that were potentially cardiovascular in origin (breathlessness, chest pain and palpitations) and confusion," it said.

Citing another research study, the researchers have said with long COVID daily activities like mobility, personal care are affected.

In another study of 1,020 participants showed that long COVID affected the ability to work in more than 45% of people.

While emphasizing on the impact of long COVID on the daily life of those who have been infected, the study adds that "sequelae were more likely following severe infection and were not observed following asymptomatic infection and pre-infection vaccination may be protective."

However, it is important to note that COVID vaccination started in many countries almost a year after the infection was first spotted which makes it obvious that a huge population is at the risk of going into long COVID.

“The beauty of this study is they have a control group, and they can isolate the

proportion of symptomatology that is attributable to Covid infection,” said Dr. Ziyad AlAly, chief of research at the V.A. St. Louis Health Care System and a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, to NY Times.

“It also tracks with the broader idea that long Covid is truly a multisystem disorder,” Dr. Al-Aly said, one that resides “not only in the brain, not only in the heart — it’s all of the above.

Dr Aly is not a part of the research group.