Strain William David, Sherwood Ondine, Banerjee Amitava, Van der Togt Vicky, Hishmeh Lyth, Rossman Jeremy
Diabetes and Vascular Research Centre, University of Exeter Medical School, Barrack Road, Exeter EX2 5AX, UK.
Academic Department of Healthcare for Older People, Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital Barrack Road, Exeter EX2 5DW, UK.
Vaccines (Basel). 2022 Apr 21;10(5):652. doi: 10.3390/vaccines10050652.
Long COVID is a multi-system syndrome following SARS-CoV-2 infection with persistent symptoms of at least 4 weeks, and frequently for several months. It has been suggested that there may be an autoimmune component. There has been an understandable caution amongst some people experiencing long COVID that, by boosting their immune response, a COVID vaccine may exacerbate their symptoms. We aimed to survey people living with long COVID, evaluating the impact of their first COVID vaccination on their symptoms.
Patients with long COVID were invited to complete a web-based questionnaire through postings on social media and direct mailing from support groups. Basic demographics, range and severity of long COVID symptoms, before and after their vaccine, were surveyed.
900 people participated in the questionnaire, of whom 45 had pre-existing myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) but no evidence of COVID infection, and a further 43 did not complete the survey in full. The demographics and symptomology of the remaining 812 people were similar to those recorded by the UK Office of National Statistics. Following vaccination, 57.9% of participants reported improvements in symptoms, 17.9% reported deterioration and the remainder no change. There was considerable individual variation in responses. Larger improvements in symptom severity scores were seen in those receiving the mRNA vaccines compared to adenoviral vector vaccines.
Our survey suggests COVID-19 vaccination may improve long COVID patients, on average. The observational nature of the survey limits drawing direct causal inference, but requires validation with a randomised controlled trial.
长期新冠是一种在感染严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）后出现的多系统综合征，症状持续至少4周，且常常持续数月。有人认为可能存在自身免疫成分。一些患有长期新冠的人谨慎地认为，接种新冠疫苗增强免疫反应可能会使症状加重，这是可以理解的。我们旨在调查患有长期新冠的人群，评估他们首次接种新冠疫苗对其症状的影响。
通过社交媒体发帖和支持团体直接邮寄的方式，邀请患有长期新冠的患者完成一份基于网络的问卷。调查了疫苗接种前后的基本人口统计学信息、长期新冠症状的范围和严重程度。
900人参与了问卷调查，其中45人先前患有肌痛性脑脊髓炎或慢性疲劳综合征（ME/CFS），但无新冠感染证据，另有43人未完整完成调查。其余812人的人口统计学特征和症状与英国国家统计局记录的相似。接种疫苗后，57.9%的参与者报告症状有所改善，17.9%报告症状恶化，其余无变化。个体反应差异很大。与腺病毒载体疫苗相比，接种信使核糖核酸（mRNA）疫苗的人症状严重程度评分改善更大。
我们的调查表明，新冠疫苗接种总体上可能会改善长期新冠患者的症状。该调查的观察性质限制了直接因果推断，但需要通过随机对照试验进行验证。
