PCC virus infection does not affect lung function in children and young adults, according to two separate studies presented at the International Congress of the European Respiratory Society.
It was not known what the long-term effects were on lung function in children and young adults, but now, European scientists have found that there is no damage to lung function in this group after COVID-19 infection, the disease caused by the PCC (Chinese Communist Party) Virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has raised questions about whether and how the lung is affected after the elimination of coronavirus infection, especially in young people in the general population with less severe disease. Until now, this was not known.” said on Tuesday in a press release Ida Mogensen, lead author of the Swedish study and postdoctoral researcher at the Karolinska Institute.
There are no differences in lung function in young adults with or without COVID-19
Mogensen and his team analyzed information collected from 661 young adults (born in Stockholm between 1994 and 1996) who had participated in an extensive ongoing study before the pandemic.
They were clinically examined for pre-pandemic between 2016 and 2019 and again between October 2020 and May 2021, where lung function, inflammation, and white blood cells were measured.
Of the 661 participants, 178 or 27 percent tested positive for antibodies to the CCP virus, indicating that they had been previously infected.
The researchers found that there was no difference in lung function between young people with a previous COVID-19 infection and those who had not been infected, and even participants with “asthma did not show a statistically significant impairment of COVID-19. lung function “except for” slightly lower measures of the amount of air that could be forcibly exhaled in a second, known as forced expiratory air volume in a second (FEV1), which is one of the measures of function pulmonary “.
“Our analysis showed similar lung function regardless of the history of COVID-19,” Mogensen said. “When we included 123 participants with asthma in the analysis, the 24 [percent] who had COVID-19 tended to have slightly lower lung function, but this was not statistically significant. “
Mogensen said the findings were reassuring for the young adult population and added that more data was needed from people with asthma and severe COVID-19 disease.
Unaltered lung function in children and adolescents
Scientists at Bochum University Children’s Hospital (Germany) examined the long-term effects on lung function after PCC virus infection in participants aged 5 to 18 years between August 2020 and March 2021.
The study included 73 patients who tested positive for antibodies to the virus or had a positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, and 45 participants without COVID-19, “but may have had some other infection.” they acted as controls. Lung function tests performed between two weeks and six months after infection were compared between the two groups.
Of the 73 patients, 26 showed symptoms during acute infection and 14 of the 45 in the control group had a symptomatic infection that was not COVID-19. In addition, 19 of the 73 patients reported new or persistent symptoms after a PCC virus infection, and eight had at least one respiratory symptom: two with persistent cough and six had ongoing respiratory problems.
However, when the researchers compared the two groups, they found that “no significant differences in the frequency of abnormal lung function were detected.”
“In children and adolescents, serious lung complications are rare, although 11.1 [percent] of our patients with symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection described dyspnea with acute COVID-19, ”the authors wrote.
“To our knowledge, our study is the first to compare lung function in symptomatic and asymptomatic children and adolescents with and without evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection; no difference was observed between these two groups. Even the majority of patients with persistent respiratory symptoms did not show an alteration in lung capacity, ”the authors added.
The severity of the infection was the only indicator of mild changes in lung function, “regardless of a COVID-19 infection,” according to lead author and pediatric and adolescent medicine specialist Dr. Anne Schlegtendal.
“These results should offer some peace of mind to children, teens and their families,” Schlegtendal said. “The discrepancy between persistent respiratory problems and normal lung function suggests that there may be a different underlying cause, such as dysfunctional breathing, which is a problem that has also been identified in adults.”
Meiling Lee is a health reporter for The Epoch Times.