Post COVID-19 sequelae: A prospective observational study from Northern India

  1. Shivdas Naik
  2. Manish Soneja
  3. Soumendra Haldar
  4. Netto George Mundadan
  5. Prerna Garg
  6. Ankit Mittal
  7. Devashish Desai
  8. Praveen Kumar Trilangi
  9. Sayan Chakraborty
  10. Nazneen Nahar Begam
  11. Bisakh Bhattacharya
  12. Ganesh Maher
  13. Swathi S Kumar
  14. J Kirthana
  15. Bharathi Arunan
  16. Ankesh Gupta
  17. Niranjan Mahishi
  18. Chaitra Rajanna
  19. Prateek Parsoon
  20. Nikhil A Kumar
  21. Sayan Maharatna
  22. Akashneel Bhattacharya
  23. Vishakh C Keri
  24. Sameer A Samed
  25. AK Adarsh
  26. Imtiyaz Shareef
  27. Neeren Ravela
  28. Satish Swain
  29. Radhika Sarda
  30. Harshith B Kadnur
  31. Ashok Dudhwal
  32. Ayush Agarwal
  33. Kartik Vedula
  34. Ashish Gupta
  35. Shubham Agarwal
  36. R Anand
  37. Pratima Lalikar
  38. Pallavi Jagtap
  39. B Premjeet
  40. Parul Kodan
  41. Prayas Sethi
  42. Animesh Ray
  43. Pankaj Jorwal
  44. Arvind Kumar
  45. Neeraj Nischal
  46. Sanjeev Sinha
  47. Ashutosh Biswas
  48. Naveet Wig
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Abstract

Background

Long COVID, or post-COVID-19 sequelae, is being seen in a growing number of patients reporting a constellation of symptoms, both pulmonary and extrapulmonary. Studies on COVID-19 recovered patients are scarce. Thus, there is a need to add granularity to our existing knowledge about the course and long-term effects of the infection.

Aim

To describe the clinical details and risk factors of post-COVID sequelae in the North Indian population.

Method

This prospective observational study was conducted at a tertiary healthcare centre in Northern India between October 2020 to February 2021. Patients aged >18 years with a confirmed COVID-19 disease were recruited after at least two weeks of diagnosis and interviewed for any post-COVID-19 symptoms.

Results

Of 1234 patients recruited, who were followed up for a median duration of 91 days (IQR: 45-181 days), 495 (40.11%) patients had symptoms. In 223 (18.1%) patients, the symptoms resolved within four weeks, 150 (12.1%) patients had symptoms till twelve weeks, and 122 (9.9%) patients had symptoms beyond twelve weeks of diagnosis of COVID-19. Most common long COVID-19 symptoms included myalgia (10.9%), fatigue (5.5%), shortness of breath (6.1%), cough (2.1%), disturbed sleep (1.4%), mood disturbances (0.48%) and anxiety (0.6%). The major determinants of developing post-COVID-19 symptoms in the patients were hypothyroidism and the severity of the disease.

Conclusion

Most often, patients complain of myalgias, fatigue, dyspnoea, cough and disturbed sleep. Patients who are hypothyroid or have recovered from moderate to severe COVID-19 are at higher risk of developing post-COVID sequelae. Therefore, a multidisciplinary approach is required to diagnose and manage COVID-19 recovered patients.

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