Long COVID Patients Show Abnormal Activity 8 Months After Infection

A comprehensive new study published in the journal Nature Immunology has reported immune dysregulation persists in long COVID patients up to eight months after initial infection, Rich Haridy reported for New Atlas.

Photo Insert: Compared to a control group composed of uninfected subjects, or subjects infected with other coronaviruses, six specific immune biomarkers were notably elevated in COVID-19 patients.

The Australian research found long COVID is characterized by elevated levels of specific immune biomarkers, offering the strongest objective evidence to date of this emerging chronic disease. However, researchers indicate it is still unclear what impact vaccination or the Omicron variant will have on long COVID.

The study systematically followed 147 people for eight months following an acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. About 20 percent of the cohort experienced symptoms of long COVID at four months past initial infection.

Blood samples were taken from all subjects at several points over the study. The researchers were interested in how each patient’s immune system was responding in the months following COVID-19.

“In conducting this research, we were looking for proteins in the serum,” said co-lead author on the new study, Chansavath Phetsouphanh. “These proteins, or biomarkers, are evidence of an abnormal process caused by a disease. We analyzed 31 different biomarkers that we suspected could be ‘triggered’ by COVID-19, and we identified a small subset that were associated with long COVID syndrome.”

Compared to a control group composed of uninfected subjects, or subjects infected with other coronaviruses, six specific immune biomarkers were notably elevated in COVID-19 patients.

There was little difference in these biomarker levels between long COVID cases and COVID cases with no persistent symptoms up to four months after infection. But from four months these elevated immune biomarkers began to drop in non-long-COVID subjects while remaining high in long COVID patients.

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