WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A comprehensive study conducted by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, led by Ziyad Al-Aly, head of research at the VA Saint Louis Health Care System, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has found that vaccination significantly reduces the likelihood of developing long COVID.
The study compared the health records of over 440,000 Veterans Affairs patients who had contracted COVID-19 with those of over 4 million uninfected individuals. The researchers discovered that the instances of long COVID, also known as PASC (post-acute sequelae of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), decreased among all participants during the Delta and Omicron phases of the pandemic.
The study determined that the lowest long COVID rate, at 3.5%, was among vaccinated individuals infected between mid-December 2021 and January 2022, compared to the 7.8% rate among unvaccinated patients from the same period. Ziyad Al-Aly noted that much of the decline in long COVID cases is attributable to vaccination. However, he also emphasized that vaccine effectiveness wanes over time, highlighting the importance of keeping up with yearly vaccine shots.
Despite the positive trend in reducing long COVID rates, the study revealed ongoing concerns, especially as the study identified 'a substantial residual risk of PASC among vaccinated persons who had SARS-CoV-2 infection during the omicron era.' The research also highlighted that with the vast number of ongoing infections, even a 3.5% long COVID rate among infected adults can result in millions of additional long COVID cases.
While the study provides valuable insights, it has limitations and leaves open questions for future research, such as the influence of the type or number of vaccines on the risk of long COVID, and the potential exacerbation of long COVID burden due to repeated infections.
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