Long Covid affected majorly people who had a severe Covid-19 infection, finds a study. The study, published in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, found that patients who had been bedridden for at least seven days during the SARS-CoV-2 infection had the highest prevalence of severe physical symptom burden, over double that of those not diagnosed with Covid-19.
They also had the most persistent symptoms for up to two years after diagnosis.
The prevalence of chronic symptoms such as shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness, headaches, and low energy/ fatigue, was 37 per cent higher in those who had had a Covid-19 diagnosis than in those who had not.
However, no elevated prevalence of long Covid was found in people who had never been bedridden with the SARS-CoV-2 infection.
“Long Covid has grown into a major public health problem since a large proportion of the global population has been infected,” says Emily Joyce, doctoral student at the Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.