The following is a summary of “Post-viral symptoms and conditions are more frequent in COVID-19 than influenza, but not more persistent,” published in the October 2024 issue of Infectious Disease by Tesch et al.
The post-viral symptoms, long recognized in medicine, gained increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic due to their frequent occurrence after SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to correlate the specificity, frequency, and persistence of post-viral symptoms after SARS-CoV-2 infection and influenza.
They studied a large group of people in Germany using healthcare data and compared 573,791 people with COVID-19 in 2020 to the people without COVID-19 and those with influenza in 2018, which were followed up for 18 months.
The results showed that the post-viral symptoms, defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) for COVID-19, along with the tissue damage, were more common in the COVID-19 cohort compared to the influenza controls. However, the persistence of post-viral symptoms was similar between the individuals with COVID-19 and those with influenza.
They concluded that the post-viral symptoms after SARS-CoV-2 infection were common, persistent, and were a significant health problem.
Source: bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-024-10059-y
