'Silent' organ damage found in over half of long Covid patients, study warns
A recent study has revealed that Covid can cause "silent organ damage", sparking fears that the virus is still evolving.
The research, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, found that 59 per cent of long Covid patients had single-organ impairment a year after initial symptoms, with 29 per cent experiencing multi-organ impairment.
Senior author Professor Amitava Banerjee from UCL Institute of Health Informatics said: "Impact on quality of life and time off work, particularly in healthcare workers, is a major concern for individuals, health systems, and economies."
He added that many healthcare workers in the study had no prior illness, but of 172 such participants, 19 were still symptomatic at follow-up and off work at a median of 180 days. Future research needs to look at the links between symptoms, damage to multiple organs and how they function in larger groups of people.
Dr Rae Duncan from Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust warned: "Covid is a spectrum and long Covid is only one end of that. It's never been just a cold. The more times you're infected, the higher your cardiovascular risk, neurological, and endocrine risk. These can all result in life-altering conditions. Some people may have hidden organ damage, which doesn't show any symptoms, meaning they don't know it's happening. It needs more research but it's very worrying."
Baby boy has spent his life in hospital as doctors are 'scared' to discharge him
Even though Covid cases have dropped a lot since the highest points, recent data shows there are still problems. As of January 10, about 2.3% of people in England and Scotland had Covid in the community, which is around 1.2 million people. This information comes from the winter infection survey done by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the UK Health Security Agency, which gives important information about how the virus is spreading.
Even though there are fewer infections compared to previous years, experts are warning that there could be more waves of cases in the future. Professor Stephen Griffin from the University of Leeds warned: "We're still seeing multiple waves of Covid every year because the virus is still evolving at an incredible rate." He also mentioned that with new variants constantly appearing and vaccine protection decreasing, the UK is "not suppressing prevalence", which means "we'll continue to see those waves".
Despite a recent rise in cases, there hasn't been a similar increase in hospital admissions, largely thanks to the success of the vaccination programme. The UK's jab campaign has been crucial in lowering Covid-related deaths. Even though some people are hesitant about getting vaccinated, especially in certain groups, vaccines have shown to be very effective in preventing serious illness and death. The fight against anti-vaccine views and making sure as many people as possible get their jabs are ongoing tasks for health officials.
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
