Long Covid symptoms six times more common in severe cases, varies depending on variants: Study

As health experts get a grip on controlling immediate symptoms from Covid-19 through all kinds of variants, researchers are trying to understand a post-pandemic world, how long Covid symptoms will affect the infected in the future. The study that will be presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2022) in Lisbon next month has found that different variants may give rise to different symptoms.

Researchers compared long Covid-19 symptoms with the original Wuhan variant and alpha variant and found the virus displayed different emotional and neurological symptoms. A retrospective observational study was conducted on 428 patients who were treated at the Careggi University Hospital’s post-COVID outpatient service between June 2020 and June 2021.

Researchers found, at least three-fourths of patients reported at least one persistent symptom, and the most common symptom was shortness of breath (37%) and chronic fatigue (36%). These were followed by sleep problems (16%), brain fog (13%), and visual problems (13%), according to the release.

The researchers found that individuals with severe cases, who were treated with immunosuppressant drugs, complained of long Covid symptoms six times more than those who did not have severe disease. Moreover, 40 percent of those who were treated with oxygen support complained of long hauler symptoms.

The study further found women compared to men were almost twice as likely to report long COVID symptoms but interestingly though, patients with type 2 diabetes seemed to have a lower risk of developing long COVID symptoms.

Moreover, insomnia, the prevalence of muscle aches and pain, brain fog, and anxiety/depression significantly increased in cases with alpha variant, while loss of smell, dysgeusia (a distorted sense of taste), and impaired hearing was less common.

The data for the study included a questionnaire on persistent symptoms completed by the individuals on average 53 days after hospital discharge and this was cross-referenced with a patient medical history, demographics, and microbiological and clinical COVID-19 course.

According to Dr. Michele Spinicci, lead researcher from the University of Florence and Careggi University Hospital in Italy that performed the study, the study results remind that the problem is not going away and more support is required to protect the infected patients in long term.

Dr. Spinicci pressed for future research with a focus on the potential impacts of variants of concern and vaccination status on ongoing symptoms.