Cases of Covid-19, flu and bronchiolitis are falling in France. But, according to a recent study, not all coronavirus patients are (really) clear of the virus once it is gone. Indeed, according to a study involving nearly 160,000 participants and published in Cardiovascular Research (a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), Covid-19 is associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease and short- and long-term deaths.
The researchers found that people infected with the virus had up to 81 times higher probability of death during the first three weeks of infection. And the risk remains five times higher up to 18 months later.
“Patients with Covid-19 were more likely to develop many cardiovascular diseases than uninfected participants, which may have contributed to their higher risk of death,” said study author Prof. Ian CK Wong from the University of Hong Kong, China. Before completing: “The results indicate that patients with COVID-19 should be monitored for at least a year after their recovery from acute illness to diagnose cardiovascular complications of infection, which are part of the long Covid”.
Cardiovascular complications
To reach this conclusion, the researchers compared the occurrence of cardiovascular disease and death in infected people with those who were not. Results ? This study reveals that patients infected with the virus were four times more likely to develop major cardiovascular disease in the acute phase and 40% more likely in the post-acute phase. The former were also more likely to develop major cardiovascular disease or die than non-serious cases.
“This study shows that COVID-19 also increases the risk of having cardiovascular complications and dying in the first weeks after infection. The risk remains high for months, suggesting that a cardiovascular monitoring may be appropriate in these patients,” recommends ESC spokesperson Professor Héctor Bueno of the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), Madrid (Spain).
