Covid symptoms can last for at least 6 months, new Wuhan study suggests

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The study of more than 1,700 patients treated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the original epicenter of the pandemic, shows that 76% had at least one symptom months after they were released from the hospital.

The findings indicate that even people recovering from Covid-19 can experience long-term health problems from their battle with the coronavirus, which has infected more than 90 million people worldwide.

The study, the largest of its kind to date, published Friday in the medical journal The Lancet. Fatigue and sleep problems were found to be the most common symptoms after Covid-19, occurring in 63% and 26% of patients, respectively, six months after the start of their initial diagnosis.

The disease can also have long-term psychological complications, with anxiety or depression reported in 23% of patients, the study found.

Patients who were more severely ill tended to have lasting evidence of lung damage on X-rays, according to the researchers.

“Because Covid-19 is such a new disease, we are just beginning to understand some of its long-term effects on patient health,” says Dr. Bin Cao of China-Japan Friendship Hospital and Capital Medical University, who led the study. team, said in a statement.

“Our analysis indicates that most patients continue to live with at least some of the virus’s effects after leaving the hospital, and highlights the need for post-discharge care, especially for those who have severe infections. Importance of longer follow-up studies in larger populations to understand the full spectrum of effects Covid-19 can have on humans, “the statement said.

The long-term health effects of Covid-19

Scientists around the world are studying the long-lasting effects of the virus, commonly referred to as “long Covid symptoms.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists fatigue, shortness of breath, cough, joint pain, and chest pain as the most commonly reported long-term symptoms. Others, such as problems with thinking and concentration – known as “brain fog”, depression and headaches, are also reported among coronavirus long-haul travelers.

While most people with Covid-19 recover and return to normal health, some patients may have symptoms that can persist for weeks or even months after recovery from an acute illness. Even people who are not hospitalized and who have mild illness. can have persistent or late symptoms, “says the US CDC.

A study published in August in the British Medical Journal found that about 10% of patients had long-term Covid-19 disease that lasted longer than 12 weeks.

But the Chinese study is the largest, with the longest follow-up, to examine the long-term impact on discharged patients, the authors said.

Wuhan's Jinyintan Hospital is the world's first medical facility designated for the treatment of Covid-19 patients.

The study’s patients, with an average age of 57 years, were all discharged from Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan between January 7 and May 29, 2020, a designated Covid-19 facility that treated the world’s first known people as of December 2019 who contracted the disease. .

In total, the study included 70% of all Covid-19 patients discharged during that period, excluding those who died, who were unable to participate due to severe mental or physical conditions, and who refused to participate.

All participants were interviewed with a series of questionnaires to evaluate symptoms. They also underwent physical exams, a six-minute walking test and blood tests, the study said.

Unexpectedly, 13% of patients who did not appear to have acute kidney injury during hospitalization showed signs of renal failure.

According to studies, nearly half a million people have had Covid-19 in Wuhan. That is almost 10 times the official figure
A team of researchers from the Institute of Pharmacological Research in Bergamo, Italy, who were not involved in the study, wrote in an accompanying comment in The Lancet that the findings “ needed to be interpreted with caution ” as there were limits to the way it was measured. ”

However, the findings on fatigue, sleep problems, and anxiety or depression fit in with previous research on patients with a related coronavirus that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and 2004, the Chinese researchers said.

A follow-up study of SARS survivors showed that 40% of patients had chronic fatigue symptoms more than three years after infection, the researchers said.

Another study found that 38% of SARS survivors had evidence of lung damage 15 years later, the researchers at the Institute of Pharmacological Research noted in their comment.

Growing coronavirus outbreak

China largely contained the first coronavirus epidemic in Wuhan in March and has been able to quickly curb sporadic local outbreaks in its territory ever since.

But it is now facing the worst coronavirus flare-up in months in the northern province of Hebei, which surrounds the capital Beijing, just weeks before the Lunar New Year festival – the most important time for family reunion in China.

A year after Wuhan, China shuts down another city with 11 million people to prevent a coronavirus attack
Last week, the province conducted massive coronavirus tests on 13 million people in the cities of Shijiazhuang and Xingtai, which identified 364 positive cases, Hebei officials said at a news conference Sunday afternoon.

Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital and epicenter of the ongoing outbreak, was severely shut down last week. Residents are not allowed to leave the city because major highways were blocked, train and bus stations closed and flights canceled.

Within the city, public transport and schools have been suspended, and residential communities and villages have also been shut down, with orders to stay at home for seven days after completing their coronavirus tests.

On Sunday, Hebei Province discovered 82 locally transmitted Covid-19 cases, 77 of which were reported in Shijiazhuang and five in Xingtai, according to the Chinese National Health Commission.

Local coronavirus infections are also being reported in several cities in Northern China, including Beijing, and Liaoning and Heilongjiang provinces.
In Beijing on Saturday, an online driver who reported a car was identified as an asymptomatic case, leading authorities to track down 144 passengers who had been in his car. From Monday, all passengers must show a QR code from the Covid-19 health app in Beijing on their smartphone before they can board taxis or minivans.

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