Latifi Ashkan, Flegr Jaroslav
Laboratory of Evolutionary Biology, Department of Philosophy and History of Sciences, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Viničná 7, 128 00 Prague, Czech Republic.
Biomedicines. 2024 Dec 30;13(1):69. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines13010069.
The long-term consequences of COVID-19 infection are becoming increasingly evident in recent studies. This repeated cross-sectional study aimed to explore the long-term health and cognitive effects of COVID-19, focusing on how virus variants, vaccination, illness severity, and time since infection impact post-COVID-19 outcomes. We examined three cohorts of university students ( = 584) and used non-parametric methods to assess correlations of various health and cognitive variables with SARS-CoV-2 infection, COVID-19 severity, vaccination status, time since infection, time since vaccination, and virus variants. Our results suggest that some health and cognitive impairments may persist, with some even appearing to progressively worsen-particularly fatigue in women and memory in men-up to four years post-infection. The data further indicate that the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 variant may have the most significant long-term impact, while the Omicron variant appears to have the least. Interestingly, the severity of the acute illness was not correlated with the variant of SARS-CoV-2. The analysis also revealed that individuals who contracted COVID-19 after vaccination had better health and cognitive outcomes compared to those infected before vaccination. : Overall, our results indicate that even in young individuals who predominantly experienced only mild forms of the infection, a gradual decline in health and fitness can occur over a span of four years post-infection. Notably, some negative trends-at least in men-only began to stabilize or even reverse during the fourth year, whereas in women, these trends showed no such improvement. These findings suggest that the long-term public health impacts of COVID-19 may be more severe and affect a much broader population than is commonly assumed.
近期研究中，新冠病毒感染的长期后果愈发明显。这项重复性横断面研究旨在探究新冠病毒感染对长期健康和认知的影响，重点关注病毒变体、疫苗接种、疾病严重程度以及感染后的时间如何影响新冠康复后的结果。我们调查了三组大学生队列（n = 584），并使用非参数方法评估各种健康和认知变量与严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）感染、新冠严重程度、疫苗接种状况、感染后的时间、接种疫苗后的时间以及病毒变体之间的相关性。我们的研究结果表明，一些健康和认知障碍可能会持续存在，有些甚至似乎会逐渐恶化，尤其是女性的疲劳和男性的记忆力，在感染后长达四年的时间里都是如此。数据还表明，原始的SARS-CoV-2变体可能具有最显著的长期影响，而奥密克戎变体的影响似乎最小。有趣的是，急性疾病的严重程度与SARS-CoV-2变体并无关联。分析还显示，与在接种疫苗前感染的个体相比，在接种疫苗后感染新冠病毒的个体具有更好的健康和认知结果。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，即使在主要经历轻度感染形式的年轻个体中，感染后四年内健康和体能也可能会逐渐下降。值得注意的是，一些负面趋势——至少在男性中——在第四年开始趋于稳定甚至逆转，而在女性中，这些趋势并未出现改善。这些发现表明，新冠病毒对长期公共卫生的影响可能比普遍认为的更为严重，且影响的人群范围更广。
