Study says long COVID symptoms depended on the variant patient is infected with

The COVID-19 pandemic started off in China in December 2019 and ever since then a number of variants appeared in the different waves of the pandemic. Every variant of COVID, showed new symptoms and new possibilities of its severity. A new study that will soon be presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Lisbon has found that the different variants of COVID can lead to different long COVID symptoms.

Researchers in Italy have found that the patients who were infected with the alpha variant of COVID had shown emotional and neurological symptoms when compared to patients who were infected with the original form. Dr. Michele Spinicci and colleagues had led the study from the University of Florence which had 428 patients who were treated at the Careggi University Hospital between June 2020 and June 2021. This was the period when the alpha and the original variant of COVID was infecting the population.

Nearly 76 percent of the patients said that they had at least one persistent symptom and the most common symptom that was reported by the group was shortness of breath. 37 percent of the patients complained of chronic fatigue, while other symptoms included visual problems, brain fog and sleep issues. The analysis by the researchers found that the patients who were administered with immune suppressants like tocilizumab were more likely to have and report long COVID symptoms. On the other hand people who were treated with high flow oxygen support were 40 percent more likely to have long symptoms as well.

The research also found that women were more likely to report long COVID symptoms. Another interesting thing that was found by the researchers was, patients with type 2 diabetes had a lower risk of long COVID symptoms and better studies were needed to understand this particular finding. The researchers also found a considerable change in the neurological and cognitive problems in patients who were infected in the period between March and December 2020.

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