Corona current
These 2 factors can favor Long Covid
© Girts Ragelis / Shutterstock
Many people continue to suffer from symptoms long after they have survived the corona infection. With a study, researchers have now been able to determine two factors that can decide whether affected patients develop Long Covid.
As is now known, the delta variant of the corona virus only causes a mild course of the disease in most cases. However, the word “mild” can be a bit misleading here: Many patients still have to struggle with symptoms for weeks after surviving the infection. The most common include persistent fatigue, difficulty concentrating and headaches. And that’s not all – Exactly these patients are increasingly suffering from Long Covid.
How common is Long Covid?
According to experts, one always speaks of Long Covid, if the symptoms persist for more than four weeks after the infection has been overcome. But why are some people affected and others not? Researchers from Luxembourg from the Health Institute in Strassen examined the condition of patients one year after their infection. A total of 289 people who had Corona took part. The average age of the subjects was 40 years, about half of the respondents were women.
All were asked to fill out a detailed questionnaire dealing with their health status. The focus was on the 64 symptoms that most often lead to Long Covid. The result: around 60 percent of the participants were still struggling with at least one symptom of the disease a year after being infected with Covid-19. From this it can be concluded that about six out of ten sufferers suffer from Long Covid.
What Causes Long Covid?
With the help of the data, the researchers were able to identify two factors Which are more likely to cause you to get Long Covid after infection:
- If the symptoms of the disease last longer than 15 weeks, they last for at least a year in most cases.
- After a moderate to severe course of the disease, the likelihood of long Covid is twice as high as if you had only mild or no symptoms.
In general, it can be summarized that patients with a moderate to severe course in particular have an increased risk of long Covid. Furthermore, differences between mild and symptom-free courses of the disease became apparent in the study: “Participants with a mild form of the acute disease were more likely to still have a symptom and sleep problems after one year than asymptomatic participants,” says Aurelie Fischer, the main study author. In the study, however, it must be noted that the number of participants is relatively small and the data are therefore only of limited significance.
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