BEIJING: After tracking recovered COVID-19 patients for over two years, a group of Chinese scientists have unearthed clues that could explain the mechanisms of long COVID-19. They have discovered key biomarkers that can help identify high-risk groups and develop treatment.
Long COVID-19 — characterized by lingering symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness or cognitive dysfunction even three months after the initial infection — is estimated to affect around 10 to 20 percent of people infected by the disease, said the World Health Organization. The biology behind the condition remains a mystery.
For the study published last week by the online journal EBioMedicine, an arm of The Lancet, a team of Chinese researchers studied 181 COVID-19 patients who were discharged from a hospital in Wuhan between January and May 2020, as well as 181 healthy individuals matching in age and gender.
The researchers collected plasma samples from the case studies during three follow-up visits over the next two years and analyzed the structure and function of blood proteins.
“We identified four recovery modes of different biological processes among COVID-19 survivors over the two years after infection, and thus gathered molecular insights into the potential mechanism of long COVID,” said the study released by a research team led by Cao Bin, vice-president of China-Japan Friendship Hospital and a renowned respiratory and critical illness expert.
The other authors include researchers from Peking Union Medical College Hospital and Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province, where the first domestic cases was registered. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item