A year after having COVID-19, only around one in four hospitalised patients feel fully recovered, according to a UK study published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal which found that the disease affects women worse than men.
The team led by researchers at the University of Leicester, UK, found that being female versus being male, having obesity and having had mechanical ventilation in hospital were all associated with a lower probability of feeling fully recovered at one year.
The most common ongoing long-COVID symptoms were fatigue, muscle pain, physically slowing down, poor sleep, and breathlessness.
“The limited recovery from 5 months to 1 year after hospitalisation in our study across symptoms, mental health, exercise capacity, organ impairment, and quality-of-life is striking,” said Rachael Evans, from the University of Leicester.
“In our clusters, female sex and obesity were also…