Only about one in four patients hospitalized with Covid-19 have fully recovered after one year.
This is what a British study indicates this Sunday, which specifies that being a woman or obese increases the risk of maintaining health problems.
This study, presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Lisbon (Portugal) and published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, used data from adult patients from 39 hospitals in the UK National Health Service (NHS). between March 7, 2020 and April 18, 2021.
Fatigue, physical slowdown, lack of sleep...
Recovery was assessed using measures of different outcomes of patient examinations performed five months and one year after discharge from hospital.
In particular, the researchers took blood samples from the participants during the five-month visit to analyze the presence of various inflammatory proteins.
A total of 2,320 patients were examined five months after their discharge and 33% of them were examined one year later.
The study found that the proportion of adults who had fully recovered did not change significantly between five months and one year after leaving hospital: it was 25.5% for patients examined five months after, and 28.9% for those who still had it a year later.
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Being female, being obese and having been on a ventilator in hospital are all associated with a lower likelihood of feeling fully recovered after one year, the study found.
Among the most common symptoms of long Covid are fatigue, muscle aches, physical slowness, lack of sleep and shortness of breath.