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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 predicting the pandemic’s ongoing pain.
Nearly two-thirds of those who followed still experienced fatigue or muscle weakness six months after their acute illness, while 26% had sleep problems and 23% had anxiety or depression, according to the peer-reviewed study of 1,733 patients in the medical journal The Lancet.
The research from China underscores the long-term effects of Covid-19 for individuals and societies as infections around the world are on the rise despite nascent vaccination campaigns. It also highlights the growing need for long-term care for large groups of populations and research into the ongoing effects of the new disease, said Bin Cao, a lung specialist at the National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases in China and one of the authors.
Read more: Why ‘Long Covid’ Suffering May Last Longer Than the Pandemic: QuickTake
That aside, the study adds credibility to concerns about the possibility of re-infections among those who have recovered. The researchers analyzed levels of neutralizing antibodies – immune proteins that the body normally produces in response to viruses that can prevent recurrent illness. In a group of 94 patients, levels of these antibodies decreased by an average of 53% during the study period of six months after their disease peaked.
Covid-19 not only causes pneumonia, but is also 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 stay had impaired function in the follow-up study.
Walk test
For many severely affected patients, lung function was still impaired six months later. More than half of the people who had to be ventilated had reduced oxygen supply from the lungs to the bloodstream, while about a quarter of the others had that problem.
Patients with severe illness also performed worse in a six-minute walking test, about a quarter of which failed to reach the lower distance limit of the normal range, the study said.
The study followed patients discharged from Jin Yin-tan hospital in Wuhan, where the virus emerged, and their mean age was 57.
“There are few reports on the clinical picture of the aftermath of Covid-19,” said researchers at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan in an accompanying note, and the Wuhan study is “therefore relevant and timely.”