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- BBC News World
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A person who has had COVID-19 is at increased risk of developing a serious blood clot within six months of having the illness.
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That is one of the main conclusions of a recent study carried out in Sweden and published in the specialized journal British Medical Journal (BMJ).
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The research also found that people with severe covid, especially those who had to be hospitalized, and those infected during the first wave had the increased risk of clots.
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The study does not state that covid-19 was the cause of these clots, but it does identify the infection as a risk factor to develop thrombi, that is, blood clots inside a blood vessel.
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To reach these conclusions, the researchers tracked the health status of more than a million people who tested positive for covid between February 2020 and May 2021 in Sweden, comparing them to four million people of the same age and gender who had not tested positive.
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According to the authors of the research, their findings highlight the importance of get vaccinated
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For patients of the first wave, before vaccination, the risks of developing this type of problem is higher.
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the findings
The study showed that after a covid-19 infection the risk of:
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- Develop Deep venous thrombosis (DVT), which are blood clots in the leg, within three months.
- Develop pulmonary embolism, which are blood clots in the lungs, within six months.
- Internal bleeding, such as strokewithin a period of two months.
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Comparing the risks of blood clots after covid-19 with the normal level of risk, they found that:
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- 4 in 10,000 covid patients developed DVT, compared to 1 in 10,000 people who did not have covid.
- About 17 in 10,000 Covid patients had a blood clot in the lung, compared to less than one in 10,000 who did not have Covid.
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The study argues that the increased risk of blood clots was greater in the first wave of the pandemic, probably because treatments improved over the following months and older patients began to be vaccinated in the second wave.
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That result was “expected“, according to Dr. Inmaculada Roldán Rabadán, cardiologist of the Cardiovascular Thrombosis Group of the Spanish Society of Cardiology, in statements collected by the Science Media Center Spain portal.
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“So we had fewer tools to manage the disease,” he explains.
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The risk of a blood clot in the lung in people who were seriously ill with covid was shown to be 290 times higher than normaland seven times higher than normal after mild covid.
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Mild covid was not seen to increase the risk of internal bleeding.
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The study speaks of an association between these problems and covid-19, but does not determine causality.
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“Good reason to get vaccinated”
Blood clots can also occur even after getting vaccinated, but the risk is much lower, according to a study led by the University of Oxford in August 2021.
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“For unvaccinated people, that’s a very good reason to get vaccinated: the risk is much higher than the risk of vaccines,” says Anne-Marie Fors Connolly, a researcher at the Department of Clinical Microbiology at Umea University in Sweden and lead author of the study.
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Frederick K Ho, a professor of public health at the University of Glasgow who was not involved in the study, argues that although the risk of clots increases after vaccination, “the magnitude of the risk remains lower and persists for a shorter period than that associated with infection.
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Covid and clots
The study does not prove that covid is the cause of blood clots.
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With this type of study “we can only determine if there is a association between covid-19 and blood clots of blood or bleeding,” Fors Connolly tells BBC Mundo.
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The expert adds that to establish a relationship of causality Other types of studies would be necessary.
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“The data is clear in showing that there is an association (between covid-19 and clots), but what is not totally clear is How does that partnership work?Jon Gibbins, director of the Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research at the University of Reading, who was not involved in the research, tells BBC Mundo.
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“Further efforts are needed to determine whether this is due to a long-standing inflammatory condition or some form of immune dysfunction long-lasting,” adds Gibbins.
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Even so, the researchers believe that the appearance of the clots could be the direct effect of the virus in the layer of cells that line the blood vessels, an exaggerated inflammatory response to the virus, or the body forming blood clots at inappropriate times.
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Frederick K Ho says that this study “reminds us of the need to remain vigilant for complications associated with even a mild covid infectionincluding thromboembolism.
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For her part, Dr. Roldán Rabadán concludes that this research “is highly relevant for the management of the disease in the future.”
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*With information from Philippa Roxby and Carlos Serrano.
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