Post-viral symptoms and conditions are more frequent in COVID-19 than influenza, but not more persistent.

ABSTRACT:

Background

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.

Methods

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.

Results

We found tha

SUBMITTER: Tesch F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11465902 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature