One in eight adult patients with covid-19 develops prolonged symptoms of the disease, according to study estimates published this Thursday by the British medical journal “The Lancet”.
The researchers, from the University of Groningen, compared the frequency of new or severe symptoms in an uninfected population with people who had been diagnosed with covid-19, allowing a more reliable estimate of the prevalence of long-term illness than in previous studies.
Of the adults who had covid, 21.4% experienced at least one new symptom or severely three to five months following infection, according to research, which has established that one in eight patients experience long-term symptoms.
The symptoms of prolonged covid
The study also looked at people’s symptoms before and following SARS-CoV-2 infection.
This allowed to identify the core symptoms of prolonged covid: chest pain, shortness of breath, pain when breathing, muscle pain, loss of taste and smell, tingling in extremities, lump in throat, sensation of hot and cold, heaviness in arms and/or legs, and general tiredness.
The study provides one of the first comparisons of long-term symptoms following SARS-CoV-2 infection with symptoms in an uninfected population, as well as measuring symptoms in individuals before and following COVID-19.
“There is an urgent need for data reporting the scale and extent of long-term symptoms experienced by some patients following COVID-19 illness,” said Judith Rosmalen of the University of Groningen, lead author of the study.
“Our study approach analyzes symptoms most often associated with prolonged covidincluding respiratory problems, fatigue, and loss of taste and/or smell, both before a COVID-19 diagnosis and in people who have not been diagnosed.”
