More and more studies show that many people struggle with serious late injuries after being infected with corona.
In a new study from the UK, researchers examined the course of the disease in 48,000 people after they had been discharged from hospital.
It then emerged that almost a third of the patients needed a new admission within four months.
In addition, one in eight patients died after being discharged.
In light of the serious findings, doctors are now arguing that we should monitor patients to a much greater extent in the time after they have had a serious illness. In this way, damage to organs and other complications may be detected at an early stage.
FHI says that studies in Norway also indicate that people who have been admitted to hospital have a greater need for health care afterwards.
– Worrying
It is well known that the virus can cause serious breathing problems. Less well known is perhaps that corona can also cause serious damage to organs such as the heart, liver and kidneys.
The new study is a collaboration between researchers at University College London, the University of Leicester and the Office for National Statistics in the UK.
The researchers have looked at the records of 48,000 people who have been discharged from hospitals after corona, to see if they managed afterwards.
They looked at the need for new hospitalization, whether people died after being seriously ill and whether they had breathing, heart, liver and kidney problems, or had diabetes.
After 140 days, almost a third needed hospitalization again, and one in ten had died.
According to the authors this was not just about the elderly people who were examined in the study. The researchers believe the findings must be taken seriously.
– This is worrying and we must take this seriously, says doctor Amitava Banerjee at the Department of Health Informatics at University College London to The Guardian.
– We clearly show here that this is far from benign disease. We need to monitor patients for corona so that we can be aware of organ failure early, she says.
– RESEARCH: Following questions from TV 2, subject director Frode Forland and colleagues at the National Institute of Public Health have reviewed the study from the United Kingdom. Photo: Simen Askjer / TV 2
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Increased consumption of health services
The National Institute of Public Health does not currently have information corresponding to the English study in Norway. They can therefore not answer how many Norwegians have needed a new admission after four months.
– We can probably study this by linking different registers over time, says director of infection control at FHI, Frode Forland.
He also points out that a Norwegian study has investigated the use of health services for patients with severe covid-19, who have needed hospitalization. The study shows the same trend.
– The study showed that hospitalized patients had probably increased consumption of health services after covid-19. A similar increase was not seen among patients with mild covid-19, says Forland.
INTENSIVE DEPARTMENT: A lot of equipment is required in the intensive care unit for coronary heart disease at Haukeland Hospital. Photo: Ivar Lid Riise / TV 2
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Possible weaknesses
When it comes to the study from the UK, the authors state that the diagnosis of new admission was not registered. Forland believes this is a weakness in the study.
– In the control group without covid-19, 9.2 per cent were also admitted to hospital, so new hospitalization due to covid-19 should be significantly lower than 29.4 per cent, says Forland.
The authors also mention that the threshold for being readmitted after covid-19 may be lower than usual.
– There may also be different practices in how quickly patients are discharged, which may increase the need for new hospitalization. Perhaps this has been the case in England, which has also seen more pressure on the health care system than Norway, he says.
The subject director says that he is also concerned that many people experience late injuries after corona in Norway as well.
Increased risk
Although new studies are constantly being published, much is still uncertain.
Unexplained long-term symptoms that persist for more than four months after people have been infected with corona are often called “long covid”. Doctors are still working to find a pattern in why some people experience late injuries so long after they became infected.
Forland points out that in FHI’s knowledge summary published earlier in March, they found that many patients had at least one symptom at six months of follow-up.
– The most common symptoms were shortness of breath, fatigue and decreased sense of smell and taste. The findings from our report are heterogeneous, but indicate that the severity of covid-19 is associated with an increased risk of long-term symptoms, says the subject director.
NIPH believes that the study indicates that people who get a serious course of the disease with corona, also run an increased risk of long-term symptoms.
“Patients who are admitted to the intensive care unit with covid-19 seem to have the greatest risk of developing long-term covid-19,” he says.
ADMISSION: So far, we have not conducted studies in Norway that look at how many people need a new admission after having been seriously ill with corona. Photo: Ivar Lid Riise / TV 2
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Unclear context
At the same time, it is unclear whether the symptoms are specific for covid-19 or reflect more general late effects of intensive care and viral infections as no controlled studies have been performed.
Forland explains that many patients admitted to intensive care units after invasive medical treatment experience post-intensive care syndrome (PICS), which shares many similarities with long-term covid-19.
The researchers in the British study believe that we need to monitor corona patients to a greater extent after they have been discharged from hospital to detect complications and organ failure in an early study.
– How is this work done in Norway? Are we good enough to follow up on people after they have been admitted?
– People with long-term symptoms should contact a doctor for follow-up. Our impression is that this is taken very seriously by both the primary and specialist health services, says Forland.
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