The Impact Lingers of COVID Even Three Years After the Infection, According to a New Study

With the latest research showing that the Covid-19 virus has effects that extend far beyond the initial infection and illustrate the pandemic's lasting effects on global health, a new level of knowledge has become accessible. Three years after catching Covid-19, people may still experience significant health issues, per a study published in Nature Medicine.

• What long-term risks come with prolonged COVID

Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly and colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered data indicating that hospitalized Covid-19 patients continue to have a markedly elevated risk of death and other serious health complications up to three years after infection. The largest study of its kind, which examined more than 130,000 patients, disproved the notion that the effects of Covid are transient by demonstrating how long the virus continues to affect different organ systems.

• What do the results indicate?

The study's conclusions contain both comforting and worrisome information. The risk of serious illnesses like strokes, heart attacks, heart failure, and even Alzheimer's disease persisted for those who were admitted to the hospital during their first infection and affected seven different organ systems. Three years later, these patients had a 34% higher risk of health issues compared to those who had never had Covid-19.

Long-term effects of COVID-19 were substantial, affecting the neurological, gastrointestinal (GI), and pulmonary systems mainly, even in individuals with mild initial cases. Three years after infection, these out-of-hospital patients had a 5% higher chance of developing long-term health issues, or 41 more health problems per 1,000 individuals.

• Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs): What Are They?

The burden of prolonged Covid was also calculated in the study using a metric called disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), which measures the number of years lost to illness or early death. Compared to heart disease or cancer, which each cause about 50 DALYs per 1,000 people, long-term COVID-19 infection caused approximately 90 DALYs per 1,000 people for hospitalized patients. Approximately 10 DALYs were caused by non-hospitalized patients for every 1,000 individuals, which indicates a notable but smaller impact in comparison to those who were hospitalized.

The findings of Dr. Al-Aly's study demonstrate that COVID-19 is not a self-contained virus that stops affecting people after the acute stage. Rather, years later, new health issues may arise as a result of its residual effects. "People are developing new-onset disease as a result of an infection they had three years ago," Al-Aly states. This emphasizes the significance of conducting long-term follow-up research to completely comprehend the virus's long-term effects on health.