Referrals to Cambridge’s long COVID clinic fell sharply in the period August 2021 to June 2022, which researchers say is likely due to the successful rollout of the vaccine.
Reducing the incidence of long-term coronavirus disease referrals to the Cambridge University Teaching Hospital long-term coronavirus disease clinic Summary Long-term coronavirus disease (COVID [LC]) constitutes a potential health emergency as millions of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections lead to chronic symptoms. We must understand whether vaccines reduce CL because this has important implications for health policy. We report a 79% reduction in CL referrals correlating with vaccination in the UK. |
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According to the Office for National Statistics, in July this year, approximately 2 million people in the UK were living with self-reported long COVID, meaning symptoms continued for more than four weeks after their first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) infection. 19). . Patients report symptoms including fatigue, muscle aches, memory problems and shortness of breath more than six months after acute COVID-19, and a significant number of patients have not fully recovered two years after initial infection.
Two recent studies have suggested that vaccination significantly reduced long COVID symptoms one to three months after infection, but another study using a cohort of US military veterans suggested a more modest 15% reduction at the six months.
In May 2020, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, part of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), established a long COVID clinic, with patients referred to the clinic based on a number of criteria, one of which is the duration of symptoms. of at least five months. . These patients tend to be those at the severe end of the symptom spectrum, having been referred following assessment by a team including a GP, mental health professionals, physiotherapists and occupational therapists, among other specialists.
Researchers from the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases (CITIID), University of Cambridge and CUH analyzed data from the clinic and found a 79% drop in the number of patients referred to the clinic from August 2021 to June 2022 in compared to August 2020 to July 2021. The decline began five months after people began receiving second doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
The six-month moving averages fell from around 10 references per month to just one or two references per month. So far, this effect has persisted until at least June 2022, despite acute cases of COVID-19 in England increasing fourfold a month over the same time periods.
Dr Ben Krishna from the University of Cambridge said: “Long COVID can have a significant impact on a person’s life, and the large number of patients still experiencing symptoms many months after infection puts additional pressure on our health care services.
“We know that the rollout of vaccines has had a major impact on the number and severity of COVID infections, and evidence from our clinic suggests that it has also played an important role in reducing rates of the most severe cases.” of long COVID.”
Researchers say it is possible, but unlikely, that the emergence of the Delta variant also affected long COVID rates. However, the observed reduction in long COVID rates in August 2021 was due to patients experiencing symptoms for five months, which they said would suggest a change from March 2021. This correlates well with the second vaccination doses in the UK, but the Delta wave did not begin until April 2021.
The team says they also cannot rule out previous infections that provide immunity that protects against long COVID from reinfections; however, primary infections were more common than reinfections around March-April 2021.
The team saw no change in symptoms among those referred for long COVID before or after vaccination for any of the main symptoms, such as fatigue (73% before vaccination vs. 76% after vaccination) and shortness of breath ( 18% pre-vaccination vs. 23% post-vaccination).
It is still unclear what level of immunity is required to protect against long COVID, researchers say. As immunity wanes over time, booster vaccines, including variant-specific booster vaccines, may be necessary to minimize the risk of long COVID.
Dr Nyaradzai Sithole from CUH said: “As the virus continues to circulate and infect, and in many cases, reinfect people, it is important that everyone is up to date with their vaccines. Not only will this help prevent, or at least lessen, your primary COVID infection, but it should also reduce the risk of long COVID. But it remains to be seen whether with the emergence of new variants we will begin to see an increase in the number of long COVID cases.”
The study is published in Clinical Infectious Diseases .
The research was funded by Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), with support from the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.
