Enlarge / Long-term patient with COVID in Germany tests for lung function at the Hufeland Clinic’s Pneumology Center.
More than one in five adults in the United States who have recovered from COVID-19 may develop a long-term condition associated with a viral infection, according to a study published this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Conditions after COVID include heart, lung, kidney, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, neurological and mental diseases. Overall, COVID survivors were almost twice as likely to develop respiratory and lung diseases, including pulmonary embolism, as compared to uninfected controls. The most common conditions after COVID are respiratory conditions and musculoskeletal pain.
Among COVID survivors, people aged 18 to 64 are more likely to develop cardiac arrhythmia and musculoskeletal pain than older people. Risks for survivors aged 65 and over were higher for kidney failure, blood clots, cerebrovascular disease, muscle disorders, neurological conditions and mental illness.
In the older age group, “post-COVID conditions affecting the nervous system are particularly important because these conditions can lead to early entry into support services or investing additional resources in care,” the authors write. And for the 18-64 age group, the post-COVID situation may be particularly “affecting the patient’s ability to contribute to the workforce and may have economic consequences for survivors and their dependents.”
With more than 83 million cases of COVID-19 reported in the United States – and the actual number of infections probably significantly higher – the findings mean that millions may develop long-term symptoms that require additional care and resources. “Therefore, the implementation of strategies for the prevention of COVID-19, as well as the routine assessment of post-COVID conditions among people who have survived COVID-19, is crucial to reduce the incidence and impact of post-COVID conditions, especially among adults. age ≥65 years “, the authors conclude.
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I study design
For the study, the authors dug up electronic health records from a national, de-identified database containing information on 63.4 million adult patients from all 50 countries. CDC researchers identified 353,164 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between March 2020 and November 2021. They then compared each COVID-19 patient on a one-to-five basis with 1,640,776 follow-up patients who visited a health facility. in the same month as COVID – Diagnosis of 19 patients but not diagnosed within the time frame of the study. All survivors and controls were monitored for at least one month and up to one year.
Patients with a history of any of the 26 conditions previously associated with COVID-19 were excluded from the study.
Overall, 38.2 percent of COVID-19 survivors developed a condition after COVID, compared with 16 percent of uninfected controls. In the 18-64 age group, 35.4 percent of survivors developed a condition after COVID, compared with 14.6 percent of controls. In the age group of 65 years and older, 45.4% of survivors developed a condition after COVID, compared with 18.5% of controls.
The absolute difference in risk between the COVID survival rate and the controls that developed after COVID was 20.8 percentage points for those aged 18-64 and 26.9 percentage points for those aged 65 and over. Based on these calculations, the CDC estimates that one in five adults aged 18 to 64 and one in four adults aged 65 and over have developed at least one condition after COVID.
The study has several limitations, including only the use of electronic health records from a single software source, making it possible for the results not to be aggregated across the United States. It also does not take into account different variants of SARS-CoV-2 and some demographic details, such as geographical location. And because it is based on electronic health records, it can be biased towards those who find care easier.
However, the authors note that their findings are “consistent with those of several large studies that show that conditions after the COVID incident occur in 20-30 percent of patients,” they wrote. Overall, they conclude, “these findings may raise awareness of post-COVID conditions and improve patient care and management after exacerbations.”
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