People who have received two doses of vaccine against Covid-19 are less likely to have long symptoms, in the event of infection.
- Long Covid is characterized by the persistence of symptoms more than four weeks after infection.
- According to a study by Public Health France, 30% of people who have been infected with the virus meet the criteria for a long Covid.
- 20% of them still had symptoms 18 months after infection.
Vaccination against Covid-19 protects against serious forms of the disease, but not only. According to a study by the Israeli University of Bar-Ilan, people who have received two doses are less likely to develop a long form. Their results were published in the journal Nature.
Less common symptoms
Nearly 3,500 adults took part in the study, conducted between July and November 2021. They answered a questionnaire on their vaccination status and on a possible infection with Covid-19. More than half of participants said they had never been infected with the virus, and 951 claimed to have already been. Of those infected, 67% received at least two doses of vaccine. The researchers compared vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in terms of post-infection symptoms.
After controlling for factors such as age and time between infection and survey response, they found that vaccination with two or more doses of the Pfizer vaccine was associated with a reduced risk. of post-Covid symptoms. For example, vaccinated people had a 62% reduced risk of experiencing fatigue and/or muscle weakness in the weeks following infection. The risk of headaches was reduced by half, and that of persistent muscle pain by 66%. Other commonly reported symptoms, such as shortness of breath, were reduced by up to 80%. “Eight of the ten most frequently reported symptoms were between 50 and 80% less common in people who received at least two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine compared to those who received none“, add the authors.
More studies to come
“We don’t fully understand what happens in the months and years following Covid-19 infection in terms of physical and mental health and well-beingrecalls the lead author of the study, Professor Michael Edelstein, of the Azrieli Faculty of Bar-Ilan. As the long forms of Covid-19 seem to affect a lot of people, it was important for us to check whether vaccines could help alleviate symptoms..” If the results of this study prove the interest of vaccination against these long symptoms, the researchers intend to continue their work on the long forms of the disease. They wish to obtain more information on vaccination and its various impacts: on quality of life, on the different variants of the virus and on the long forms.