According to the study, one in eight patients suffer from long-term symptoms of COVID-19.

Every eighth infected coronavirus develop at least one symptom of long-term COVID-19, one of the largest studies ever done on the disease, showed on Thursday.

With more than 500 million cases of coronavirus reported worldwide since the start of the pandemic, concerns have been raised about long-term symptoms in people with the disease. COVID-19 long-playing.

But few studies have compared people with protracted COVID and who is not infected.

A new study published Lancet asked more than 76,400 adults in the Netherlands to complete an online questionnaire about 23 typical symptoms of prolonged COVID.

Between March 2020 and August 2021, each participant completed the questionnaire 24 times.

During this period, more than 4,200 people, or 5.5%, reported being infected with COVID-19.

Of these, more than 21% had at least one or more severe symptoms three to five months after infection.

However, almost 9% of people in the control group who did not receive COVID-19 reported a similar increase.

This suggests that, according to the study, 12.7% of people with COVID-19, almost one in eight, suffered from long-term symptoms.

Other symptoms

The researchers also recorded symptoms before and after exposure to the virus. COVID-19which allowed them to pinpoint exactly what was linked to the virus.

They found that common symptoms of long-term COVID include chest pain, shortness of breath, muscle pain, loss of taste and smell, and fatigue.

One of the authors of the study, Aranka Ballering from the Dutch University of Groningen, noted that protracted COVID it was “a pressing issue with rising human costs”.

“By studying symptoms in an uninfected control group and in people before and after being infected with SARS-CoV-2, we were able to see symptoms that could result from non-infectious aspects of the pandemic, such as stress caused by restrictions and uncertainty,” he said. (AFP)