More than three-quarters of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Wuhan between January and May had at least one persistent symptom six months later, according to a report that predicts lasting pandemic pain.
Nearly two-thirds of those still experiencing fatigue or muscle weakness half a year after their acute illness, while 26% had difficulty sleeping and 23% had anxiety or depression, according to the study reviewed by experts in 1,733 patients at the medical journal The Lancet.
China’s research underscores the long-term effects for people and societies as infections increase worldwide despite potential vaccination campaigns. It also highlights the growing need for sustained care for large expanses of populations and research into the persistent effects of the new disease, according to Bin Cao, a lung specialist at China’s National Center for Clinical Research for Respiratory Diseases. one of the authors.
Beyond that, the study adds credibility to concerns about the possibility of reinfections among those who have recovered. The researchers looked at the levels of neutralizing antibodies, immune proteins that the body normally produces in response to viruses that can prevent the recurrence of disease. In a group of 94 patients, levels of these antibodies fell by an average of 53% during the six-month study period after their peak disease.
In addition to causing pneumonia, the virus is known to affect the kidneys, heart, blood vessels and other tissues. Laboratory tests showed that 13% of patients whose kidneys appeared healthy during their hospital stays had reduced function in the follow-up examination.
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For many affected patients, lung function was still compromised half a year later. More than half of the people who needed ventilation had reduced oxygen flow from the lungs to the bloodstream, while about a quarter of others had this problem.
Patients with serious illness also had a worse outcome in a six-minute walking test, with about a quarter of them unable to reach the lower distance limit than the normal range, according to the study.
The study followed patients discharged from Jin Yin-tan Hospital in Wuhan, where the virus originated, and their mean age was 57 years.
“There are few reports on the clinical picture of the consequences of COVID-19,” researchers in the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan said in an attached comment that the Wuhan study is “therefore relevant and timely. “.
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