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Covid-19 reinfections may
increase likelihood of new health problems |
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Repeatedly catching Covid-19
appears to increase the chances that a person will face new and
sometimes lasting health problems after their infection, according
to the first study on the health risks of reinfection. The study, which is based on
the health records of more than 5.6 million people treated in the VA Health
System, found that, compared with those with just one Covid-19 infection,
those with two or more documented infections had more than twice the risk of
dying and three times the risk of being hospitalized within six months of
their last infection. They also had higher risks for lung and heart problems,
fatigue, digestive and kidney disorders, diabetes and neurologic problems. The findings come as a fresh
wave of coronavirus variants, notably Omicron's BA.5, have become dominant in
the United States and Europe, causing cases and hospitalizations to rise once
again. BA.5 caused about 54% of cases nationwide last week, doubling its
share of Covid-19 transmission over the past two weeks, according to data posted
Tuesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical
epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, led the research, which
was posted as a preprint ahead
of peer review. He said he decided to do it after watching reinfections
become more and more common among his own patients. The study found that the risk
of a new health problem was highest around the time of a Covid-19
reinfection, but it also persisted for at least six months. The increased
risk was present whether or not someone had been vaccinated, and it was
graded -- meaning it increased with each subsequent infection. "If you asked me about
reinfection maybe a year and a half ago, I would tell you that maybe I have a
patient here or there, but it's really, really rare," Al-Aly said.
That's not true anymore, though. "So we asked a simple question that if
you got Covid before and now you're on your second infection, does this
really add risk? And the simple answer is that it does." |
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