According to a press statement from the university released in late July, as if contracting COVID wasn’t awful enough, a new study from the University of Birmingham has now indicated that those who contract the virus may experience additional symptoms in the future.
proving patient complaints are true
Dr. Shamil Haroon, associate clinical professor of public health at the University of Birmingham and the study’s senior author, said that the findings “validate what patients have been telling clinicians and policy-makers throughout the pandemic, that the symptoms of Long Covid are extremely broad and cannot be fully accounted for by other factors such as lifestyle risk factors or chronic health conditions.”
The symptoms we found “could aid clinicians and clinical guideline developers in improving the assessment of patients with long-term Covid-19 effects, and to afterwards explore how this symptom load might be effectively treated.”
The researchers used the anonymised electronic health records of 2.4 million UK residents collected between January 2020 and April 2021 to draw their conclusions. After matching for other clinical diagnoses, this data set included 1.9 million individuals without any evidence of coronavirus infection and 486,149 individuals with a history of infection.
The researchers discovered three distinct issues that might be divided into three categories: respiratory symptoms, mental health issues, and cognitive issues. Anosmia, shortness of breath, chest pain, fever, forgetfulness, apraxia, bowel incontinence, erectile dysfunction, hallucinations, hair loss, and limb swelling were among a wider spectrum of symptoms. Recognizing the pathophysiology and complexity of extended COVID
“This study plays a key role in developing and enhancing our understanding of the pathogenesis and complexity of protracted COVID. It draws attention to the severity and variation of symptom expression across various clusters. The additional analysis of risk variables will be welcomed by patients with pre-existing medical conditions as well, according to Jennifer Camaradou, a patient partner and co-author of this study.
The study also found demographic groups that were more likely to acquire lengthy COVID, including females, young persons, members of black, mixed, or other ethnic groups.
For instance, autoimmune illnesses are more prevalent among women. As a result of our study’s finding that women are more likely than males to have lengthy COVID, we are now more interested in examining the possibility that autoimmunity or other factors may be to blame for the elevated risk in women. Anuradhaa Subramanian, Research Fellow at the Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham and lead author of the paper, said that these findings will help to further focus on factors to investigate that may be causing these persistent symptoms after an infection and how we can help patients who are experiencing them.