25% of patients with mild Covid infection suffer from lung disease even after a year – Dainik Savera Times

London: 25 percent of patients with mild Covid infection continued to suffer from lung disease even after a year. This has come to light from a study. Such data has emerged, which confirms that even after recovery from severe Covid infection, pulmonary function was found to be impaired. However, little is known about the extent, recovery, and determinants of pulmonary function impairment across the spectrum of severity of COVID-19 over time.

To determine this, researchers at the University of Amsterdam measured the pulmonary function of 349 participants up to a year after the disease began. Pulmonary function of 301 out of 349 participants was tested between May 2020 and December 2021. After one year of follow-up, 25 percent of the participants had poor pulmonary function. This means that 11 percent of the patients had mild Covid, 22 percent had moderate Covid and 48 per cent of the participants had severe Covid.

Improvements continued among participants at 1, 6 and 12 months. The improvement in pulmonary function was slower in patients suffering from comorbidities as they advanced in age. Improvement in conditions was seen with time. This became equivalent to that of individuals with no impaired pulmonary function at 12 months. The researchers said, ‘Our findings show that one-fourth of the patients had poor pulmonary function even 12 months after infection.

An association between the severity of Covid-19 and restrictive pulmonary function has also been observed in studies up to one year. Researchers said, ‘After 12 months of follow-up, improvement in pulmonary function of patients with severe Covid-19 was seen. At the same time, this improvement in middle class Covid victims started decreasing after the first 12 months.