By Jason Gale
Covid-19 patients who experience even the mildest illness are at risk of symptoms for months, researchers in France found.
Two-thirds of patients who had a mild to moderate case of Covid-19 reported symptoms 60 days after becoming ill, when more than a third still felt ill or in worse condition than when the coronavirus infection began. Prolonged symptoms were more likely among patients aged 40 to 60 and those who required hospitalization, according to staff at the University Hospital of Tours, who followed 150 noncritical patients from March to June.
Read | Indian Scientists Find Higher Viral Load In Asymptomatic Covid-19 Patients
Their study, published Monday in the journal Clinical Microbiology and Infection, adds to the evidence that a proportion of the 35 million people known to have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide will suffer effects. persistent weeks or months later. Post-Covid clinics are opening in the wake of the pandemic to serve an expanding population of so-called long-distance carriers: survivors left with scarred lungs, chronic heart damage, post-viral fatigue, and other persistent and debilitating conditions.
“We were able to assess the course of the disease and show that even the mildest presentation was associated with medium-term symptoms that required follow-up,” wrote Claudia Carvalho-Schneider and her colleagues. “Therefore, the Covid-19 pandemic will carry a burden of care long after its end.”
Read also | Donald Trump has mild symptoms, will remain at work
Two months after developing Covid-19 symptoms, 66% of adult patients reported suffering at least one of 62 complaints, primarily loss of smell and taste, shortness of breath and fatigue, the researchers found. The study sought to identify the risk of longer duration of symptoms in patients with non-critical Covid-19, as much of the existing international research relied on survivors admitted to intensive care units, they said.
Read | Saliva tests could detect asymptomatic Covid-19 cases quickly, study finds
Larger clinical studies and trials will be instrumental in elucidating the durability and depth of the health consequences attributable to Covid-19 and how they can be compared to other serious diseases, Carlos del Río, executive associate dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Emory University, and their colleagues wrote in an editorial Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association that they reviewed the lingering effects of the coronavirus.
.
