Covid-19: one in eight people suffer from at least one lasting symptom

After a Covid-19 infection, some patients have long-term symptoms. According to a study published in the scientific journal The Lancetthis would concern one in eight patients.

As a reminder, thee Covid-long can be defined as prolonged symptoms following a coronavirus infection. According to’Health Insurance, a person is said to have long-Covid when they have symptoms for more than four weeks. These sequelae sometimes last a long time, more than twelve weeks or even several months.

4,000 patients

To better understand the frequency of these long-lasting symptoms, the researchers studied data from more than 4,000 people with Covid-19. The information collected was compared with that of people who had not been infected.

As the symptoms of Covid-long are not specific, some people who have never contracted the disease have nevertheless experienced them. In detail, the scientists observed that 9% of participants who had not been infected had already had symptoms of Covid-long.

But these symptoms were much more important in people with Covid-19. According to the researchers, they were 21.4% to have suffered from it. Thus, thanks to their calculations, they established that 12% of patients had long-term sequelae from Covid-19.

Several types of pain

But what are these symptoms? It is “abdominal pain, breathing difficulties and pain, muscle aches, ageusia (loss of taste) or anosmia (loss of sense of smell)tingling, discomfort in the throat, hot or cold flushes, heaviness in the arms or legs and general fatigueexplain the authors. In 12.7% of patients, these symptoms can be attributed to Covid-19″, three to five months after infection”.

Two million French people infected with the virus

A previous study published last July estimated that more than two million French people, or 30% of people who suffered from an infection with SARS-CoV-2 more than three months previously, still suffered from one or more symptoms of long Covid.