Women with long Covid-19 syndrome have more symptoms than men.
- Women have a higher probability of having long COVID syndrome according to an Italian study
- In France, the typical long COVID profile is an active woman without comorbidity or overweight
- In France, between 250,000 and 300,000 people suffer from persistent, disabling symptoms, six months after their contamination, according to the Haute Autorité de Santé
They are statistically more likely to experience difficulty swallowing, fatigue, chest pain and palpitations: this is the conclusion of a study Italian on 223 patients, 89 women and 134 men, which revealed that women with long Covid syndrome were more symptomatic than men.
Long Covid syndrome is defined as the persistence of symptoms beyond 4 weeks after the first symptoms of acute infection, according to the Ministry of Health and Solidarity
Gender differences were known to exist in the acute phase of Covid-19 since researchers had found that women were less likely to develop severe disease than men, and had a lower death rate than men. men. MBut few studies had assessed gender differences in long Covid-19 syndrome. VS’is done with this study, the objective of which was to characterize the long-term consequences of this infection according to gender.
Average follow-up of 5 months
In this study, 91% of patients evaluated during the average follow-up of 5 months after the acute phase continued to present symptoms of Covid-19. Shortness of breath was the most common symptom of long Covid-19, followed by fatigue. Women were more symptomatic than men (97% versus 84%) and they were significantly more likely than men to report shortness of breath, weakness, chest pain, palpitations, and trouble sleeping, but no muscle aches or pain. cough.
“Long-term longitudinal studies are needed to fully understand the sex-related pathophysiology of symptoms and the effects of pharmacological treatment related to long Covid-19; these studies will be crucial to understand the natural trajectory of long Covid-19 in order to put in implement targeted treatment strategies and avoid bias in the treatment of men and women,” the researchers concluded.
Vaccine impact on long COVID
At the start of the year, the UK Health Security Agencythe British health agency, looked into the question of the impact of the vaccine on Covid long and D’according to the researchers, vaccinated people are less likely to suffer from persistent symptoms.
The researchers report that of eight studies that looked at the effect of the vaccine when it was given before Covid-19 infection, six suggested that vaccinated patients were less likely to develop symptoms of long Covid, qbe it short term, medium term or long term.
One of these studies even indicates that people who received two doses of the anti-Covid-19 vaccine are approximately half as likely to present symptoms of long Covid for at least 28 days than participants who were not vaccinated or had an incomplete vaccination schedule, the researchers also point out.
