Severity of acute Covid affects long Covid neurological symptoms

India

healthysoch

New Delhi, April 01, 2023:

A spurt in cases in India

In the last 24 hours, 3016 new Covid-19 cases were reported in the country taking the active cases toll to 13,509, according to data from the Health Ministry. This has been the highest number of cases recorded in the last six months. A total of 1,396 recovered from the infection. More than one lakh tests were conducted with the daily and weekly positivity rates being 2.73% and 1.71%. Nearly 16,000 vaccine doses were administered yesterday. Over 220 crore doses of the vaccine, including 95.20 crore second doses and 22.86 crore precaution doses have been administered up to now… (Source: Press Information Bureau, March 30, 2023)

Severity of acute Covid affects long Covid neurological symptoms

Long Covid patients who did not require hospitalization during the acute illness were more likely to have symptoms such as brain fog, headache, anosmia, dysgeusia and dizziness, whereas those who were hospitalized had greater likelihood of an abnormal neurological examination vs the non-hospitalized patients. They also scored low on attention, processing speed and working memory tasks… (Source: Annals of Neurology, March 26, 2023).

Factors predicting risk of long Covid

Older age (40 years and above), being female, a high BMI, smoking, underlying comorbid conditions and severe Covid infection necessitating hospitalization or intensive care were identified as few factors that increased the risk of post-Covid condition in a systematic review and meta-analysis of more than 800,000 patients from the UK. Vaccinated patients (2 doses), on the other hand, had lower risk of long Covid compared to the unvaccinated patients… (Source: JAMA Internal Medicine, March 23, 2023).

WHO updates its recommendations for Covid-19 vaccine

The WHO has updated its guidelines for Covid-19 vaccine taking into consideration the high immunity acquired due to either infection or vaccination. Frontline health workers, older adults, younger adults with comorbidities, immunocompromised, pregnant women and children ≥6 months have been included in the high priority group for vaccination. An extra booster dose is recommended for this group in a gap of 6 or 12 months after the last dose of the vaccine. For the medium priority group (healthy adults below 50-60 years with no comorbid conditions or children/adolescents with comorbidities), the guidelines do not recommend an extra booster dose. Healthy children and adolescents have been categorized as low risk… (Source: WHO, March 28, 2023).

Four doses of Covid vaccine more protective in patients with autoimmune rheumatic disease

Four doses of the Pfizer mRNA Covid-19 vaccine offered better protection against Covid-19 among patients with autoimmune rheumatic disease with no history of COVID-19 infection compared to three doses of the vaccine. After receiving three doses of the vaccine, 25% patients developed Covid-19, whereas just 11% of those who had received four doses of the Pfizer vaccine had Covid-19… (Source: Rheumatology, Feb. 10, 2023).

healthysoch