Statistically, there’s probability you understand anyone who has skilled Long COVID, the identify for continual signs together with fatigue, mind fog, and ache following a case of COVID-19. About 14% of U.S. adults report having had Lengthy COVID sooner or later, according to federal data.
However many individuals don’t understand that different viruses, even quite common ones, can trigger similarly long-lasting and debilitating signs. A study revealed Dec. 14 in The Lancet Infectious Ailments focuses on the chance of creating “Lengthy flu” after a extreme case of influenza.
“We discovered from COVID-19 that infections which might be initially thought to trigger solely acute sicknesses may cause continual illness,” says co-author Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of analysis and improvement on the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Well being Care System and a scientific epidemiologist at Washington College in St. Louis. That is true of influenza as properly, the brand new analysis exhibits.
Al-Aly and his colleagues used information from the U.S. Division of Veterans Affairs to check the long-term well being outcomes of about 11,000 individuals hospitalized with influenza from 2015 to 2019 with these of about 81,000 individuals hospitalized with COVID-19 from 2020 to 2022. The researchers tracked how many individuals went on to develop any of 94 well being dangers related to the 2 viruses within the yr and a half after they have been hospitalized.
Relative to influenza survivors, individuals who’d had COVID-19 have been at elevated threat of 64 of the recognized problems, together with fatigue, mental-health issues, and pulmonary, gastrointestinal, and coronary heart difficulty. They have been additionally extra more likely to die through the examine interval, consistent with other research comparing the long-term outcomes of the 2 sicknesses.
Influenza survivors, in the meantime, have been at elevated threat of solely six well being issues, most of them associated to the respiratory and cardiovascular techniques.
“COVID remains to be extra severe than the flu,” Al-Aly says, noting that it impacts quite a few organ techniques whereas influenza is usually a respiratory sickness. However long-term well being issues have been frequent in each teams through the 18 months of follow-up. The researchers recorded about 615 well being points per 100 individuals within the COVID-19 group, in comparison with about 537 per 100 individuals within the influenza group. These numbers replicate the truth that some individuals expertise quite a few continual signs after an an infection, Al-Aly says.
It’s essential to notice that the individuals included within the examine have been all hospitalized, which means they have been very sick through the acute phases of their sicknesses. The examine inhabitants was additionally overwhelmingly male and older, with a median participant age of 70. Older adults are recognized to be susceptible to the worst results of each COVID-19 and the flu. Due to this fact, the outcomes could not translate to the complete inhabitants.
That mentioned, earlier analysis exhibits that even milder sicknesses can result in long-lasting well being points. Influenza, in addition to different frequent viruses like Epstein-Barr (which causes mononucleosis), have lengthy been thought to set off myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, a post-infectious sickness that shares many signs with Lengthy COVID.
Newer analysis additionally underscores the potential results of even routine sicknesses. In a study published in October, researchers tracked individuals who had gotten sick with considered one of quite a lot of respiratory ailments, together with COVID-19, the flu, and the frequent chilly, and located that lingering signs popped up in every group. Equally, in one 2022 study of individuals with varied respiratory ailments, most of whom weren’t hospitalized, about half of individuals sick with one thing apart from COVID-19 reported ongoing points three months later. A 2021 study taking a look at each hospitalized and non-hospitalized sufferers additionally discovered that about 40% of individuals with influenza skilled at the very least one symptom generally related to Lengthy COVID within the six months after their sicknesses.
Taken collectively, Al-Aly says, these findings counsel that we have to begin pondering of viruses in a different way. “Earlier than the pandemic, I trivialized infections. [I thought] you get sick for a day or two or three, and then you definately bounce again, and it’s throughout,” Al-Aly says. However as a rising variety of research present that’s not at all times the case, he has concluded that “infections deserve respect.”
Meaning doing no matter doable to avoid catching and spreading them, he says, together with by sporting a masks during times of heavy transmission, getting all recommended vaccines, and staying residence if you really feel unwell.
