More than three-quarters of people hospitalized with Covid-19 were still suffering from at least one symptom after six months, according to a study published Saturday that scientists said shows more is needed investigate the effects of lingering coronavirus.
The research, published in the medical journal Lancet and which involved hundreds of patients in the Chinese city of Wuhan, is among a few who are looking for long-term symptoms of Covid-19 infection.
He found that muscle weakness or muscle weakness were the most common symptoms, while people reported sleeping problems.
“With Covid-19 being such a new disease, we are only just beginning to understand some of its long-term effects on patient health,” said lead author Bin Cao, of the National Center for Respiratory Medicine.
The professor said the research identified the need for ongoing care for patients after they are discharged from the hospital, especially those with serious illnesses.
“Our work also reinforces the importance of conducting further follow-up studies in larger numbers to understand the full spectrum of potential effects of Covid-19 on humans,” he said.
The World Health Organization has said the virus poses a risk to some people of chronic side effects – even among young people, who were healthy or not in hospital.
The new study included 1,733 Covid-19 patients discharged from Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan between January and May last year.
Patients, with an average age of 57, were visited between June and September and answered questions about their symptoms and health-related quality of life.
Researchers also performed physical and laboratory tests.
The study found that 76 percent of patients who participated in the review (1,265 of 1,655) reported having symptoms.
Muscle or muscle weakness was reported in 63%, and sleep problems in 26 percent.
The study also looked at 94 patients whose blood antibody levels were recorded at the height of the infection as part of another trial.
When these patients were retested after six months, their levels of neutral antibodies were 52.5 percent lower.
The authors said this raises concerns about the potential for Covid-19 re-infection, although they said larger samples would be needed to clarify how immunity to the virus changes over time.
In an opinion article also published in the Lancet, Monica Cortinovis, Norberto Perico, and Giuseppe Remuzzi, from Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri IRCCS in Italy, said there was uncertainty about the long-term health consequences of the whole disease. -discharged.
“Unfortunately, there are few reports on the clinical picture of what happened after Covid-19,” they said, adding to the latest study thus “relevant and timely”.
They said a long-term multidisciplinary study in the United States and Britain would help improve understanding and help develop therapies to “reduce the long-term effects of COVID-19 on multiple organs and bones ”.