Women more at risk of developing long COVID-19: research

By admin On Mar 24, 2023

The UK study suggests older people, women, smokers, people with higher body mass index and pre-existing medical conditions including anxiety, depression, asthma, diabetes and immunosuppression are more likely to develop the long-term illness.

It also found COVID-19 patients who were hospitalised or in ICU were at more than double the risk of developing long COVID-19.

New research into long COVID-19 reveals women are at higher risk. (9News)

Long COVID-19 occurs when someone has ongoing symptoms of the illness more than four weeks after the infection.

Symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, problems with memory and concentration known as brain fog, a cough, headaches, changes in mood, taste and smell and many more.

Researchers said the results strengthened the hypothesis that women were more at risk of long COVID-19 which may be due to hormones and antibody production.

The study included more than 860,000 patients to find who was at the highest risk of developing long COVID-19.

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It found vaccination with two doses for the virus lowered the risk of developing long COVID-19.

“The results of our study showed that vaccination for COVID-19 has a protective role against PCC (long COVID-19), with vaccinated individuals having a significantly lower risk compared with unvaccinated individuals,” the study found.

Long COVID-19 can have damaging effects with researchers finding 15 per cent of sufferers are absent from work due to the illness.

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