Long Covid has played a role in more than 3,500 deaths in the United States, C.D.C. Said

The tally is less than 1% of all coronavirus-related deaths, but it shows that it is possible to die from lingering symptoms after infection .

Long Covid has caused or contributed to at least 3,500 deaths in the United States, according to an analysis of death certificates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.< /p>

The study, released Wednesday, would be the first national review to determine whether long Covid or related terms appear in official US death records. Although it found that such phrases were only recorded in a tiny proportion of the more than one million deaths linked to coronavirus infection, the researchers and other experts said the findings added to growing recognition of the seriousness of long-term post-Covid medical issues. maybe.

"It's not one of the leading causes of death, but since this is the first time we've looked at it and that Covid is a long disease that we are learning more about day by day, the main takeaway is that it is possible for someone to die and that Covid has long played a role in their death,” said Farida Ahmad, health scientist at the National Center for Health Statistics at the C.D.C. who led the study.

Long Covid is a complex constellation of symptoms that can last for months or more and can affect virtually any organ system.Some of the most debilitating post-Covid symptoms are respiratory problems, heart problems, extreme fatigue, and cognitive and neurological problems.

Researchers examined death certificates in each state and in Washington on , D.C., dated January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2022. They found 1,021,487 certificates that included a diagnosis code for Covid-19 as the underlying or contributing cause of death. Of these, 3,544 – or 0.3% of the total – listed long Covid or terms like post-Covid syndrome, chronic Covid or long-haul Covid.

Mrs. Ahmad and experts not involved in the research said the number of long Covid-related deaths in the study was almost certainly an underestimate. It took time for the condition to be recognized and identified by doctors and other medical providers. And the study was unable to include a new diagnostic code for long Covid because it was not yet used to report deaths in the United States, the researchers said.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0"> "This new research is important to raise concern, but it should be followed by more definitive work," said Dr. Jeffrey Martin, chief of the division of clinical epidemiology in the department of in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of California, San Francisco. , who was not involved in the research.

"Historically, death certificates have been incomplete to explain how a person died," said Dr. Martin , who suggested that future research should include interviews with physicians and family members of patients and evaluation of their medical records.

The study revealed that more death certificates mentioned the long Covid after 2020 and that the condition was more likely to be listed on death certificates in the US or months after a spike in Covid cases, Ms Ahmad said. p>

The study found that some of the long patterns of Covid related to age, sex, race and ethnicity differed from those seen in deaths caused by the initial infection. For example, while blacks and Hispanics had higher death rates from initial coronavirus infection than non-Hispanic whites, these groups did not have higher death rates from long Covid, according to the study.

Researchers suggested the difference may be partly due to systemic disparities that resulted in reduced access to health care for black and Hispanic patients , who might not have received proper long-term Covid diagnoses. The study said it was also possible that because black and Hispanic patients died at higher rates from the initial disease than white patients, they might have "fewer Covid-19 survivors to live with." long-term conditions".

Almost 57% of deaths relate...