Even if it is mild, an infection with the coronavirus can have serious side effects and long-term effects.
What are the signs of long covid?
Munich - A Covid disease can apparently pass without any problems.
But even with a mild course of the disease, the coronavirus is treacherous.
Enormous late effects and side effects are possible.
If the virus attacks the brain, for example, serious secondary diseases can occur.
But when is a corona infection really over?
Some people just can't get rid of symptoms after becoming infected.
Then doctors speak of the so-called long covid.
How are the long-term consequences indicated?
A British research team has now investigated this question.
According to this, over 20 percent of the sick suffer from typical symptoms for months after the infection.
The study was published for the first time in the journal "Nature Medicine".
In Germany, SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach has repeatedly warned of Long Covid.
In addition to the sometimes slow regression of the Covid symptoms, the possible long-term damage is even more important.
Risk for Long Covid: Researchers accompany over 4,000 corona patients
4,182 corona patients from Great Britain, Sweden and the USA tracked their symptoms using an app.
Almost 13 percent complained of complaints a month after the onset of the illness.
4.5 percent registered signs for over two months.
And 2.3 percent still suffered from consequences of the disease after three months.
Is it possible to identify at an early stage which patients could develop Long-Covid?
Based on the symptoms in the first week of the disease, the gender and the age of the participants, the scientists calculated a model with which they want to predict the long-term consequences.
Six symptoms for long Covid: Model detects 75 percent of long-term corona cases
Six symptoms turned out to be warning signs according to the findings.
Breathing problems, headaches, muscle weakness and hoarseness are therefore the most significant signs of Long-Covid.
In patients over 70 years of age, disorders of the sense of smell are also linked to the risk.
To check this, the researchers used their long-covid prognosis model on over 2,400 corona patients.
They were right about 75 percent of the time.
Corona long-term consequences: Doctors view Long Covid study with skepticism
What does this hit rate say about the model?
Professor Tobias Welte, pulmonologist and director of Covid ambulance for genesis of the Hannover Medical School, estimated the study for
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one.
And expresses himself quite skeptical.
"If you look at the symptoms, it is noticeable that they are not particularly specific," he complains, "so headaches and exhaustion can be the result of many life circumstances and do not necessarily have to be due to a Covid disease."
Symptoms for Long Covid?
Expert explains two groups of people affected
Welte also refers to the important distinction between two groups of long covid cases.
About ten percent of those affected suffered from structural changes in the lungs or heart, he explains.
The second, significantly larger group would suffer from an “unspecific symptom complex”, which doctors refer to as the fatigue complex.
Welte considers the Long Covid prognosis based on the symptoms in the early stages of the corona disease to be difficult.
Not all patients with the symptoms mentioned developed long-term effects.
Welte confirms the connection with gender: “With Covid-19, it's crazy.
Because although men are twice as likely to become seriously ill and die, women have three times the risk of suffering long-term effects.
That could be because the male and female immune systems are genetically completely different. "
