63.2% of people with long-term COVID-19 or almost two out of three are women, according to the most comprehensive global survey of its kind to date. In 6.2% of people with Covid-19, symptoms of the infection last at least three months. Among people with long-term Covid-19, 15% continue to have one or more persistent symptoms for at least 12 months.

The most common symptoms are breathing problems (3.7%), constant fatigue (3.2%), muscle pain, mood swings and cognitive impairment (2.2%). The study confirmed that the risk of prolonged Covid-19 is higher in people who have been hospitalized due to coronavirus, and in particular in those who have been hospitalized in the intensive care unit for a certain period of time.

Researchers led by Dr. Sarah Wolf Hanson of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, who published the corresponding publication in the American medical journal JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), analyzed data from approximately 1.2 million people aged 4 to 66 years from 22 countries who experienced symptomatic Covid-19 during the two years from 2020 to 2021.

It found that women over the age of 20 (10.6%, i.e. one in ten) had the highest proportion of long-term Covid-19 with symptoms for at least three months after initial infection, compared to about half of men of the same age. age (5.4%) and significantly less children, adolescents and young people under 20 (2.8%).

The estimated mean duration of long-term Covid-19 symptoms was nine months for those who were hospitalized during an acute infection and four months for those who did not require hospitalization.

Source: RES-IPE