Long Covid symptoms develop in one in eight patients, study finds

One in eight Covid-19 patients go on to develop long Covid symptoms, a new study suggests.

The research by Dutch scientists also proposes a list of “core” symptoms of long Covid: chest pain, difficulties breathing, pain when breathing, painful muscles, loss of taste and smell, tingling extremities, lump in throat, feeling hot and cold, heavy arms and/or legs, and general tiredness.

Of over 76,000 participants, one in 20 got Covid-19 and these were matched to a control group of 8,462 uninfected people, according to the study, published in The Lancet.

Researchers found that of adults who had Covid-19, 21.4 per cent experienced at least one new or severely increased symptoms three to five months post-infection, compared to before infection.

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However, 8.7 per cent of a control group who remained uninfected reported new or more severe symptoms, suggesting 12.7 per cent of those who contracted Covid-19 went on to experience long-term symptoms due to the virus.

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The study provides one of the first comparisons of long Covid with symptoms in an uninfected population, as well as measuring symptoms in individuals both pre- and post-Covid-19 infection. This enables a more accurate prediction of long-term Covid-19 symptom prevalence as well as improved identification of the core symptoms of long Covid.

Researchers found the severity of the core symptoms they identified through questionnaires plateaued at three months after infection with no further decline thereafter. The authors acknowledge some limitations in the study. Participants were infected with earlier variants of Sars-CoV-2 so there is no data from people infected with Delta or Omicron variants. Few participants had been vaccinated at the time the study was conducted.

The proportion of long-Covid cases is thought to be falling with wider vaccination and the rise of Omicron.