Coronavirus patients admitted to hospital after 6 months are still ill

• Three-quarters of COVID-19 patients in the hospital in Wuhan, China, have at least one persistent symptom six months after becoming ill, a new study has found.
• About 63% of patients reported fatigue or muscle weakness – the most common long-term symptom.
• According to doctors, prolonged COVID-19 cases appear with chronic fatigue syndrome, a disease that can last for several years or longer.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Tens of millions of people have so far covered the coronavirus worldwide. But there are still questions about what recovery really means. A new study highlights the worrying fates admitted to hospital six months after their illness.

A study published in The Lancet on Friday found that 76% of COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital in Wuhan, China, six months after becoming ill, still had at least one symptom had. The study tracked down 1,733 adult patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between January and May 2020.

Researchers followed the patients from June to September and performed laboratory tests, physical examinations, lung function tests and personal interviews.

Approximately 63% of patients in the study reported fatigue or muscle weakness after six months – the most commonly observed long-term symptom. Another 26% of patients said they had trouble sleeping, while 23% said they had experienced anxiety or depression since becoming ill.

According to the researchers, to their knowledge, this study is the largest to date to assess long-term symptoms of COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital. It also has the longest follow-up period so far of any research on the subject.

“Because COVID-19 is such a new disease, we are only beginning to understand some of its long-term effects on patients’ health,” Bin Cao, one of the study’s authors, said in a statement. “Our analysis indicates that most patients still live with at least some of the effects of the virus after leaving the hospital, and emphasizes the need for care after discharge, especially for those experiencing severe infections.”

‘A forgotten group’

Edgard Garrido / Reuters

Of the 390 patients in the study who underwent a lung function test approximately six months after their diagnosis, those who received supplemental oxygen or were placed in a ventilator – people with the most serious infections – were more likely to have lung function. They also walked more difficultly than patients with milder cases.

About 822 patients in the study had normal renal function in the hospital, but 13% of them had renal impairment six months later.

Read more: What comes next for COVID-19 vaccines? Here’s the latest on 11 leading programs.

Because the new study only examines patients admitted to the hospital, its findings may not be generalized to everyone who experiences long-term symptoms.

Until recently, such individuals were a ‘forgotten group’, said dr. Steven Deeks, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told Business Insider.

“It was all about dealing with acute illnesses, which is understandable,” he said. “But now it is widely accepted that these are long-term complications that may be inappropriate.”

Doctors have not yet devised a unified term for the series of long-lasting COVID-19 symptoms, but some researchers call it ‘long-COVID’. Many patients, meanwhile, have defined themselves as ‘long-distance guards’. Deeks said he prefers the term “post-acute COVID syndrome.”

How many people have this suffering in total is not yet known. A British study by British researchers estimates that one in ten coronavirus patients experience long-term illness. A study by King’s College London, which is still awaiting peer review, found that nearly 100 out of 4,000 coronavirus patients did not recover after 12 weeks of illness.

Prolonged symptoms may look like chronic fatigue syndrome

The new study contributes to a growing body of research suggesting that fatigue is a common symptom of long-distance falls. In the King’s College study, nearly 98% of patients who were still ill after four weeks said they were suffering from fatigue.

Some patients also report that they are weak or foggy after too much physical activity – a hallmark of chronic fatigue syndrome, which is a disease that can last for years or longer.

Marco Di Lauro / Getty Images

Many patients who have received SARS have had similar long-term symptoms, a useful clue as SARS and the new coronavirus share approximately 80% of their genetic codes. A follow-up study of SARS patients in Hong Kong found that 27% met the clinical criteria. for chronic fatigue syndrome four years after their illness began. And a study among 109 SARS patients in Toronto found that more than half a year after being discharged from the ICU did not return to work due to persistent fatigue and weakness.

This ultimately affected the mental health of the SARS patients. More than 40% of those in the Hong Kong study had active psychiatric illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Only 3% of them had a history of these diseases before their SARS diagnosis.

According to Deeks, mental health issues are a “big part of the package” when it comes to acute COVID syndrome.

He suspects the new condition differs from chronic fatigue syndrome, although there is likely to be an overlap. It could take years of research before scientists understand why certain coronavirus symptoms linger, he added.

“There’s going to be a whole series of studies that are merely observational: here’s what we saw in our clinic. Here’s what we saw in this hospital group,” Deeks said. “It will be useful, but there will be no control arms.”

An ideal study, according to Deeks, would enroll large groups of healthy people and then monitor it over time. Among the group terminating COVID-19, researchers were then able to identify the differences between patients whose symptoms lingered and those who did not.

“It can take years,” Deeks added. “And in COVID time it’s decades.”