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Vaccines Effective Against Long COVID, Study Identified New Risks 

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United States: As a summer wave of COVID-19 infections heightens once again, a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine offers some positive news about the pandemic. 

The cases of long COVID have reduced since the start of the health emergency, with rates dropping from 10.4 percent before vaccines were administered to 3.5 percent for those who received the jab before the emergence of the omicron variant. 

More about the news 

The study, conducted by Ziyad Al-Aly, the chief of research at the VA Saint Louis Health Care System, employed a rich source of health records in the Department of Veterans Affairs, as arstechnica.com reported. 

The researchers gathered data for more than 440,000 veterans who contracted COVID-19 at some point between March 1, 2020, and January 31, 2022, and more than 4. 7 million veterans without the HIV virus to use as comparators or controls. 

Al-Aly and colleagues categorized the population into eight groups. Patients infected during the study period were classified into five groups based on the date of the first infection and vaccination. 

Vaccines Effective Against Long COVID, Study Identified New Risks. Credit | The New York Times

The first group comprised those who became ill before the delta variant and vaccine were available. 

Next were the vaccinated and unvaccinated who got an infection in the delta wave period and in the omicron wave. 

The uninfected controls consisted of three of eight groups; these controls were designated to one of the three time periods. 

More about the finding 

Before the COVID-19 delta variant or receiving the vaccine, 10.42 percent of the unvaccinated participants who got infected developed long COVID a year after infection, which is referred to by scientists as PASC (post-acute sequelae of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, as arstechnica.com reported. 

However, in the delta period, rates of long COVID in the unvaccinated population are reduced to 9.51 out of 100. However, those who took the vaccine saw a much lower rate – 5.35 out of 100. 

The same applies to the omicron period. The transmission rate for unvaccinated individuals again dropped by a fraction to 7.76 per 100 people, while the vaccinated now have a transmission rate of 3.5 per 100. 

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In the secondary statistical analysis of the researchers’ data through the technique known as decomposition analysis, the vaccines accounted for roughly 72 percent of the trends of reduction of long COVID across the eras. 

In contrast, the other factors concerning the said eras accounted for approximately 28 percent. Those era-related factors could include differences in the virus, treatment advances, and antiviral drugs

Diseases associated with long COVID 

Moreover, regarding the data about the disease categories associated with cases of long COVID, the researchers also conducted a shift analysis across eras study, as arstechnica.com reported. 

The researchers looked over ten disease categories: cardiovascular, coagulation and hematologic, fatigue, gastrointestinal, kidney, mental health, metabolic, musculoskeletal, neurologic, and pulmonary. 

The researchers pointed out that, in comparison to the two previous periods, there was an apparent increase in intestinal, metabolic, and musculoskeletal diseases in the added omicron phase of long COVID cases. 

The study made clear that long COVID isn’t a thing of the past, and “a substantial residual risk of PASC remains among vaccinated persons who had SARS-CoV-2 infection during the omicron era,” as explained Al-Aly and his team. 

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