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Brings: Ben Krishna, Postdoctoral, Immunology and Virology, University of Cambridge.
From the term “long COVIDIs used to describe symptoms or illnesses that persist for more than four weeks after a positive COVID test or the original onset of symptoms. Some examples are a continuation loss of taste or smellexhausting fatigueand also suffered damage to the heart from brain.
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Long COVID can seriously affect people’s quality of life and their ability to work. And there are no proven treatments, which means we may be facing a wave of disability where there is little we can do to help.
But in a new article my colleagues and I report that referrals for more serious cases of long COVID-19 has declined over the past year, despite large waves of delta and omicron infections.
In this study, we looked at references to the long COVID Clinic at Cambridge University Teaching Hospital between August 2020 and June 2022. These patients are on the more severe end of the lung COVID symptom spectrum, having been referred after review by a team of specialists after at least five months of symptoms.
We found a 79% decrease in the number of patients referred to the clinic from August 2021 to June 2022, compared to August 2020 to July 2021.
Our studio is, of course, limited by its small size. It includes data from only 145 patients and these people are from the Cambridge area. I’m curious if other research groups of clinics around the world see similar trends.
Pulmonary vaccination and COVID
There may be other reasons for the positive trend we have observed, but the timing suggests that vaccination is the most likely explanation. The drop in referrals will begin in August 2021, around five months after the UK population began receiving second doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
There is already evidence that immunity through vaccination protects long COVID, even if the magnitude of the effect is different between studies.
For instance, a study from the United States showed a 15% reduction in long COVID symptoms after vaccination, a study From United Kingdom saw a 50% reduction while one study conducted Israel found that vaccination was associated with an long Symptoms of the covid.
The reason for these differences has a lot to do with the test methods. For example, how long after COVID-19 did researchers look at symptoms? What are the symptoms? long COVID, and how severe do these symptoms have to be to qualify?
Although it is difficult to determine to what extent the vaccination long COVID symptoms, we believe vaccination has played an important role in reducing the number of new referrals in our clinic. The fact that other groups using different measurement techniques have also observed this association is very reassuring.
Reinfections
We are now in a phase of the pandemic where reinfections are becoming more common and will likely account for the majority of infections soon.
This brings us to an important question: Does reinfection carry the same risk (or even a greater risk)? long COVID, compared to previous infections? If yes, then we have a big problem why any reinfection will lead to more and more people with long COVID, eventually flooding health care.
But this assumes that previous infections do not affect the long COVID risk. In fact, we have to take other factors into account.
First, there is the possibility that some people are more susceptible (and not susceptible). long covid. Studies have already done so a number of factors found that long Predict COVID risk, such as previous infections with other viruses, such as the Epstein-Barr virus.
I haven’t seen a study that long COVID links to genetics, but I would be surprised if there were no genetic factors that predispose someone to long COVID.
If some people really have a flair for long COVID, then these people will be more likely to develop after a first infection long develop COVID, while others never long will get COVID even after repeated infections. Therefore, multiple COVID infections may not be as risky.
Immunity after infection
Another possibility is that immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) protects long covid. Each subsequent infection would therefore have a lower chance of long more than the first, as immunity increases.
While the trend we observed would support this (meaning that a much higher number of COVID cases would come later resolve reinfectionsopt), it is still unclear whether immunity from a previous infection protects long COVID, nor or reinfections with SARS-CoV-2 same risk long COVID as a primary infection.
Research from the United States suggests that the risk of long COVID increases with each reinfection, so more infections mean a higher risk. The definition of long However, the COVID in this study is very large, including all symptoms after six months. It is also a prepresswhich means that the results have not yet been examined by other scientists.
However, the data suggest that reinfections increase the risk of long COVID less than the first infection. So while any reinfection is not without risk, the risk may be slightly lower than with a first infection.
We’re definitely not done yet. We know that immunity to SARS-CoV-2, from both vaccination and previous infections, decreases over time. The long COVID rates may begin to rise as immunity wanes across the population. We will have to monitor this situation closely and continue to focus on booster vaccines.
This article was republished by The conversation with Creative Commons license. read it original article.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of TPO.
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