A new large-scale corona study summarizes how often corona patients struggle with symptoms after recovering from illness.
There are more and more reports of long Covid cases * - i.e. patients who continue to suffer from health problems for a long time after a corona infection.
Chinese researchers have now evaluated the data from 1,700 corona hospital patients.
Her focus was on the long-term consequences that the patients reported.
The scientists are concerned that after overcoming Covid disease, the following physical and psychological problems can occur in the long term.
Covid-19 is a "young" disease, not all key data are known.
But more and more large-scale corona studies are drawing an ever more precise picture of the disease and its consequences.
Among other things, a publication by Chinese researchers that deals with the question of the possible long-term consequences of surviving corona infection.
The scientists analyzed the health data of more than 1,700 former corona patients who were discharged from Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan between January 7 and May 29, 2020.
The result of the study published on January 8, 2021 on the specialist portal
The Lancet
:
Three quarters of the patients still complained of symptoms such as tiredness and sleep disorders six months after discharge
.
76 percent of the study participants, on average 57 years old, reported at least one corona-specific symptom months later
.
The Chinese researchers used symptom questionnaires and the results of physical tests such as blood tests as the basis for data.
The study participants most often reported tiredness (63 percent) and sleep disorders (26 percent) six months after the corona diagnosis.
As reported by the US TV broadcaster CNN, 13 percent of patients who did not appear to have kidney problems during their hospital stay showed signs of kidney dysfunction months after being infected.
The study directors were also worried by the fact that 23 percent of study participants reported anxiety and depression months after surviving the infection.
"Because Covid-19 is such a new disease, we are only just beginning to understand some of the long-term effects on patient health," CNN quoted Dr.
Bin Cao from China-Japan Friendship Hospital and Capital Medical University who led the study team.
To the study
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Long Covid symptoms are similar to the long-term effects after surviving SARS infection
The Chinese study must be interpreted with caution, said Italian researchers in a Lancet publication.
It is said that there were limits to how data could be collected.
However, the Italian team admits that the study results would match long-term observations of other coronavirus infections.
Studies on SARS patients had shown that they too often suffered from tiredness, sleep problems, anxiety or depression long after they had been infected.
Background: The 2003/2004 SARS epidemic in China was triggered by a coronavirus similar to the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen.
As reported by CNN,
a follow-up study of
SARS
survivors
showed that 40 percent of patients had chronic fatigue for more than three years after infection
.
In addition, lung damage was found in 38 percent of SARS survivors 15 years after recovery, as the Italian researchers inform in their comment.
Long-term effects such as shortness of breath even months after a coronavirus infection
The US Institute's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists a number of symptoms regularly observed in long-term corona patients, including:
fatigue
shortness of breath
to cough
Joint pain
Chest pain
Attention and concentration problems
depressions
a headache
"
While most people with Covid-19 recover and return to normal health
, some patients may
experience
symptoms that may last weeks or even months after recovery from the acute illness. Even people who are not hospitalized and Having a mild illness may have persistent or late symptoms, "according to the CDC.
(jg)
*
Merkur.de belongs to the Germany-wide Ippen-Digital editorial network
.
More sources: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6930e1.htm#F1_down
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