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 predicting the enduring pain of the pandemic.
Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed still had fatigue or muscle weakness half a year after their acute illness, while 26% had difficulty sleeping and 23% had anxiety or depression, according to a peer-reviewed study of 1,733 patients. from the medical journal The Lancet.
Research in China highlights the long-term effects for individuals and societies as infections increase worldwide, despite emerging vaccination campaigns. It also highlights the growing need for sustained care for large areas of the population and research into the persistent effects of the new disease, according to Bin Cao, a lung specialist at China’s National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases and one of the authors.
Beyond that, the study adds credence to concerns about the possibility of reinfection among those who have recovered. The researchers looked at levels of neutralizing antibodies – immune proteins that the body normally produces in response to viruses that can prevent repeated disease. In a group of 94 patients, the levels of these antibodies decreased by an average of 53% during the six-month study period after their disease peaked.
In addition to causing pneumonia, the virus is known to affect the kidneys, heart, blood vessels and other tissues. Laboratory tests showed that 13% of patients whose kidneys appeared healthy during their hospital stay had reduced functions on further examination.
Walking test
For many severely 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 the lungs to the blood, while about a quarter of the others had this problem.
Patients with severe illness also had poorer results in a six-minute walking test, with about a quarter of them unable to reach the lower distance limit of the normal range, the study said.
The study followed patients discharged from Jin Yin-tan Hospital in Wuhan, where the virus appeared, and their average age was 57 years.
“There are few reports on the clinical picture of the consequences of COVID-19,” said researchers at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan in an accompanying comment, and the Wuhan study is “therefore relevant and timely.”
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