A study released by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) of Minas Gerais finds that half of people diagnosed with Covid-19 have sequelae that can last for more than a year. The survey counted 23 symptoms after the end of the acute infection. Fatigue is the main complaint reported among patients.
Bolivian engineer Maximiliano Viana, 47, contracted the most serious form of the disease. Today, six months after having recovered from Covid-19, he faces sequelae, such as lack of balance, flexibility and difficulty walking. Complications got so serious that he had to come to Brazil.
He arrived here on January 25th on a hospital plane already connected to ECMO, a machine capable of functioning as an artificial lung and heart.
The Bolivian was intubated for four months. During this period, he still had to take care of pneumonia and lost 35 kilos.
Last month, he was discharged from the hospital and for ten days he has been undergoing intensive treatment at the Lucy Montoro rehabilitation network, where he has sessions of physiotherapy, physical conditioning and occupational therapy, among other specialties.
Viana must still remain in treatment for at least two more weeks, but says she is in no hurry to return home.
Covid-19 can cause complex sequelae that require rehabilitation. There are people who lose mobility in their legs, arms or who have difficulty speaking. In some cases, it takes weeks for rehabilitation to be completed.
“He [o paciente] progressively returning to activities, but still needs follow-up The person needs to be monitored to see if they are improving. But it doesn’t have to be this intensive treatment that we do for at least the first month after hospitalization in the ICU”, comments doctor Linamara Rizzo Battistella, head of physiatrics at USP
The sequels faced by Maximiliano Viana are just some of a disease that has been called “long Covid” and that was already officially recognized as a disease by the World Health Organization (WHO) at the end of last year.
More than two years after the first confirmed case of Covid-19 in Brazil, the country has part of its population vaccinated and the challenge of recovering patients with sequelae of the virus.
According to a study released by Fiocruz Minas, half of people diagnosed with Covid-19 have sequelae that can last for more than a year.
The research, which followed nearly 650 patients infected with the virus for 14 months, identified that at least 324 people (50% of the total) had post-infection symptoms.
In all, the research accounted for 23 symptoms after the end of the acute infection. Fatigue is the main complaint among patients, reported by 115 people (35.6%).
Then comes persistent cough (34%), difficulty breathing (26.5%), loss of smell or taste (20.1%) and frequent headaches (17.3%). In addition, mental disorders such as insomnia (8%), anxiety (7.1%) and dizziness (5.6%) also draw attention. Among the reports are even more serious sequelae, such as thrombosis, diagnosed in 20 patients, that is, 6.2% of the monitored population.
“Unvaccinated people who become infected with the coronavirus and, therefore, develop Covid-19, have more than a 50% risk of developing long-term Covid”, says researcher Rafaella Fortini, from Fiocruz Munas. Among those vaccinated, that chance drops to at least half, says Rafaella
Post-infection symptoms manifest in the three forms of the disease: severe, moderate and mild and usually appear up to three months after the onset of infection.
Source: CNN Brasil
