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