Mumbai, May 11
Two years after the outbreak of Covid, about half of the patients who were hospitalised, continue to have at least one symptom, says a study touted to be the longest follow-up study till date and published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
The study evaluated the health of 1,192 participants with acute Covid who were treated at the Jin Yin-tan Hospital in Wuhan (China) during the first phase of the pandemic. They were treated between January 7 and May 29, 2020, and researchers followed up on their health indicators at six months, 12 months and two years. Wuhan, incidentally, is ground-zero for Covid-19, with the early outbreaks being reported from there.
The study’s lead author, Professor Bin Cao with the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, China, said: “Our findings indicate that for a certain proportion of hospitalised Covid survivors, while they may have cleared the initial infection, more than two years is needed to recover fully from Covid.” There is a need to provide continued support to a significant proportion of people who had Covid, and to understand how vaccines, emerging treatments and variants affect the long-term health outcomes, the researcher added.
While physical and mental health generally improved over time, Covid patients still tend to have poorer health and quality of life than the general population, said a note on the study. “This is especially the case for participants with long-Covid, who typically still have at least one symptom, including fatigue, shortness of breath and sleep difficulties two years after initially falling ill,” the note added.
The study assessments involved a six-minute walking test, laboratory tests, and questionnaires on symptoms, mental health, health-related quality of life, if they had returned to work, and healthcare use after discharge. The negative effects of long-Covid on quality of life, exercise capacity, mental health, and health-care use were determined by comparing participants with and without long-Covid symptoms. The median age of participants at discharge was 57 years, and 54 percent were men.
Two years after initially falling ill, patients with Covid were generally in poorer health than the general population, with 31 per cent reporting fatigue or muscle weakness and 31 per cent reporting sleep difficulties. Covid patients were also more likely to report a number of other symptoms including joint pain, palpitations, dizziness, and headaches. In quality of life questionnaires, patients more often reported pain or discomfort and anxiety or depression than non-Covid participants, the note said.
Study limitations
The authors acknowledged that “without a control group of hospital survivors unrelated to Covid infection, it is hard to determine whether observed abnormalities are specific to Covid”. Being a single centre study from early in the pandemic, the findings may not directly extend to the long-term health outcomes of patients infected with later variants, it added.
This study was funded by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Key Research and Development Program of China, National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Major Projects of National Science and Technology on New Drug Creation and Development of Pulmonary Tuberculosis, China Evergrande Group, Jack Ma Foundation, Sino Biopharmaceutical, Ping An Insurance (Group), and New Sunshine Charity Foundation, the note said.