PremiumThe study says that there has been rising concern about the lasting symptoms seen in people with long Covid-19 as more than half a billion coronavirus cases recorded worldwide since the onset of this global pandemic.
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One in eight Covid-19 infected person develops at least one symptom of long coronavirus infections that lasts 90 to 150 days after getting recovered, according to the most comprehensive studies on the condition to date suggested on Thursday.
The study as quoted by news agency ANI says that there has been rising concern about the lasting symptoms seen in people with long Covid-19 as more than half a billion coronavirus cases recorded worldwide since the onset of this global pandemic.
However, no existing research has compared long Covid-19 infected people with those who have never been infected, indicating that it is possible that some of the health problems were not caused by the virus.
A new study published in The Lancet journal asked over 76,400 adults in the Netherlands to fill out an online questionnaire on 23 common long Covid-19 symptoms. Each participant filled out the questionnaire 24 times between March 2020-August 2021. During this, more than 4,200 people reported catching Covid-19.
Those infected with Covid-19, over 21% patients had at least new or severaly increased symptoms three to five months after getting infected. However, only 9% of a control group which did not have Covid reported a similar increase.
This suggested that around 12.7% (around one in eight) of those infected with Covid-19, suffered from long-term symptoms like chest pain, breathing difficulties, muscle pain, loss of taste and smell, and general fatigue, according to the study.
Aranka Ballering, one of the study's authors who belongs to the Dutch University of Groningen said that long Covid was "an urgent problem with a mounting human toll".
"By looking at symptoms in an uninfected control group and in individuals both before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection, we were able to account for symptoms which may have been a result of non-infectious disease health aspects of the pandemic, such as stress caused by restrictions and uncertainty," she said.
Another study author, Judith Rosmalen, said that other research in future should include mental health symptoms such as depression and anxiety, as well as aspects like brain fog, insomnia and a feeling of malaise after even minor exertion.
(With ANI inputs)