A new study finds that more than a third of people infected with COVID-19 have persistent or recurring symptoms months after diagnosis, meaning the number of potentially long-term cases of COVID-19 is greater than previously thought. took it out.
According to the study, published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers found that about 36% of those surveyed still reported COVID-like symptoms three and six months after diagnosis. Most previous studies had assumed that 10% to 30% of patients continued post-COVID symptoms.
At least 1 in 3 patients show symptoms even months later:
The study was carried out with the participation of 388 thousand 67 people in total. Of these people, 273 thousand 618 consisted of patients with COVID-19. The control group of the study consisted of 114,449 flu patients. Anonymized data from millions of electronic health records were scanned to identify the study group.
Researchers specifically looked at symptoms such as chest/throat pain, abnormal breathing, abdominal symptoms, fatigue, depression, headaches, cognitive dysfunction, and muscle pain. It was explained that the research showed that more than 1 in 3 patients had one or more features of prolonged COVID, recorded 3 to 6 months after the diagnosis of COVID-19.
It was also found that roughly 40% of those with long-term COVID-19 three to six months after diagnosis had no record of such symptoms in the previous three months, and were twice as likely to show symptoms of COVID-19 months after the acute phase of the illness than with the flu. In addition, the Oxford team concluded that people who recover from more severe COVID-19 disease are also more likely to contract long-term COVID-19.
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