Center for Evidence-Based Healthcare (ZEGV), University Hospital and Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, TU Dresden, Fetscherstraße 74, Dresden, 01307, Germany.
Techniker Krankenkasse, Bramfelder Straße 140, Hamburg, 22305, Germany.
BMC Infect Dis. 2024 Oct 9;24(1):1126. doi: 10.1186/s12879-024-10059-y.
Post-viral symptoms have long been known in the medical community but have received more public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many post-viral symptoms were reported as particularly frequent after SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, there is still a lack of evidence regarding the specificity, frequency and persistence of these symptoms in comparison to other viral infectious diseases such as influenza.
We investigated a large population-based cohort based on German routine healthcare data. We matched 573,791 individuals with a PCR-test confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection from the year 2020 to contemporary controls without SARS-CoV-2 infection and controls from the last influenza outbreak in 2018 and followed them up to 18 months.
We found that post-viral symptoms as defined for COVID-19 by the WHO as well as tissue damage were more frequent among the COVID-19 cohort than the influenza or contemporary control cohort. The persistence of post-viral symptoms was similar between COVID-19 and influenza.
Post-viral symptoms following SARS-CoV-2 infection constitute a substantial disease burden as they are frequent and often persist for many months. As COVID-19 is becoming endemic, the disease must not be trivialized. Research should focus on the development of effective treatments for post-viral symptoms.
医学领域长期以来一直关注病毒感染后的症状，但在 COVID-19 大流行期间，这些症状受到了更多公众的关注。许多病毒感染后的症状在 SARS-CoV-2 感染后被报道得尤为频繁。然而，与流感等其他病毒性传染病相比，这些症状的特异性、频率和持续性仍缺乏证据。
我们基于德国常规医疗数据，对一个大型基于人群的队列进行了调查。我们将 2020 年经 PCR 检测确诊为 SARS-CoV-2 感染的 573791 名个体与同期无 SARS-CoV-2 感染的对照个体和 2018 年流感大流行时的对照个体进行匹配，并对其进行了长达 18 个月的随访。
我们发现，与流感或同期对照组相比，COVID-19 组中，世卫组织定义的 COVID-19 后病毒感染症状以及组织损伤更为常见。COVID-19 组和流感组中，病毒感染后症状的持续时间相似。
SARS-CoV-2 感染后的病毒感染后症状构成了相当大的疾病负担，因为它们频繁发生且往往持续数月之久。随着 COVID-19 成为地方性疾病，该疾病绝不能被轻视。研究应集中于开发针对病毒感染后症状的有效治疗方法。
