More than one third of people have long COVID

More than one third of people have long COVID, according to recent research on the disease. The studies are reported in a CIDRAP press release.

‘Global Prevalence of Long COVID, Its Subtypes, and Risk Factors: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-analysis’ was published on August 30^th in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. The researchers analyzed 144 studies to reach their results.

Key findings:

• 36% of people globally reported having long COVID.
• More than half of patients studied in South America reported having long COVID.
• 30% of North Americans are expected to have long COVID.
• The disease “was persistent when study follow-up was 1 or 2 years.”
• The biggest risk factors for developing long-term COVID were not getting vaccinated, being female, and being sick from any of the variants that circled before Omicron.
• The most reported symptoms were respiratory, fatigue, psychological, and neurological.

Another study, ‘Prevalence of Symptoms Associated With Long COVID Among Adolescents in the United States, Summer 2022,’ was also published on August 30^th in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. Questionnaires regarding long COVID were sent to 784 participants aged 12-17 living in the U.S.

Key findings:

• Most teens stopped experiencing symptoms after three months.
• COVID testing results were split between participants with 34% reporting a positive result, 37% reporting having never received a positive test, and 29% reporting never being tested.
• 41% of teens that tested positive for COVID-19 experienced at least one lingering symptom.
• 12% of teens that reported never having a positive COVID test experienced at least one lingering symptom.
• 11% of participants that reported never being tested for COVID experienced at least one lingering symptom.