A new study suggests that “patients hospitalized for COVID-19 have a higher risk of severe long COVID requiring hospitalization through 6 months of follow-up.” CIDRAP has the news.
Researchers analyzed data from “74,738 and 18,790 patients diagnosed as having COVID-19 or flu, respectively, from September 2022 through December 2023.” The risk of a post-acute sequelae (PAS) diagnosis “in any setting was only slightly higher among COVID-19 patients than in those with flu 31 to 90 days after infection,” but COVID patients were “at higher risk of severe PAS requiring hospital admission.” Excess risk was reduced among “those who received antiviral treatment, were current with vaccines before infection, or weren’t hospitalized for their infections.”
In total, “826 COVID-19 patients (1.1%) and 89 flu patients (0.5%) died within 30 days after infection, and 1,391 COVID-19 patients (1.9%) and 149 flu patients (0.8%) died within 90 days.” At 31 to 90 days after infection, “45.2% of COVID-19 patients and 38.9% of flu patients were diagnosed as having PAS, and 52.8% of COVID-19 patients and 44.0% of flu patients were diagnosed 91 to 180 days post-infection. Conditions of the heart and lungs were the most common outcome among both groups of patients.”
The researchers “cautioned that their analyses included only PAS resulting in healthcare use and that patient-reported symptoms and quality-of-life measures weren't collected. ‘Our findings challenge assumptions about the uniqueness of post-acute COVID-19 morbidity and suggest the long-term burden of influenza may be underrecognized,’ they wrote.”
