Category: Symptoms
BMJ: One in seven children may still have Long Covid symptoms 15 weeks after infection
Up to one in seven (14%) children and young people who caught SARS-CoV-2 may have symptoms linked to the virus 15 weeks later, suggest preliminary findings from the world’s largest study on long Covid in children, led by UCL and Public Health England researchers.
For the study, published on the preprint site Research Square and funded by the UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), researchers surveyed 3,065 11- to 17-year-olds in England who had positive results in a PCR test between January and March as well as a matched control group of 3,739 11- to 17-year-olds who tested negative over the same period.
They found that, when surveyed at an average of 15 weeks after their test, 14% more young people in the test positive group had three or more symptoms of ill health, including unusual tiredness and headaches, than those in the test negative group, while 7% (one in 14) more had five or more symptoms.
The researchers said the data suggested that, over seven months between last September and March, at least 4,000 and possibly 32,000 teenagers of the total population of 11- to 17-year-olds who tested positive in England may have had multiple (three or more) symptoms tied to Covid-19 infection after 15 weeks.
Preprint: Long COVID – the physical and mental health of children and non-hospitalised young people 3 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection; a national matched cohort study (The CLoCk) Study.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Corneal nerve fibre loss and increased dendritic cells in patients with long Covid
This study has quantified corneal sub-basal nerve plexus morphology and dendritic cell (DC) density in patients with and without long COVID.
Results: The mean time after the diagnosis of COVID-19 was 3.7±1.5 months. Patients with neurological symptoms 4 weeks after acute COVID-19 had a lower CNFD, CNBD, and CNFL, and increased DC density compared with controls, while patients without neurological symptoms had comparable corneal nerve parameters, but increased DC density.
Conclusion Corneal confocal microscopy identifies corneal small nerve fibre loss and increased DCs in patients with long COVID, especially those with neurological symptoms. CCM could be used to objectively identify patients with long COVID.
BMJ article: Corneal confocal microscopy identifies corneal nerve fibre loss and increased dendritic cells in patients with long COVID
See also BiorXiv preprint: SARS-CoV-2 infects and replicates in photoreceptor and retinal ganglion cells of human retinal organoids
Significant abnormalities found in the eyes of some patients with severe COVID-19
Image by cocoparisienne from Pixabay
Texas embalmer: “COVID is unlike anything I’ve seen before”
“I was having people that had only been dead for a few hours and there were major clotting issues. The clots were the size of pancakes ― you never, never see those with someone who didn’t die of COVID.”
“These folks were so swollen they were completely unrecognizable. We get bodies out of ICU regularly, but not in the condition that these COVID bodies are in. They’re tremendously swollen. If they’ve been on a ventilator, that often completely runs down their immune system. It also opens them up to a lot of sepsis and secondary infections that tend to hang around hospitals, like penicillin-resistant staph infections.”
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and pretty much everywhere I’ve worked has been medium to high volume. I’m not one of those embalmers that works at a place that just does 50 or 60 bodies a year. So I’ve done this long enough and I’ve seen enough that I would know when something different pops up. COVID is unlike anything I’ve seen before.”
Image by Gisela Merkuur from Pixabay
USA: Covid-19 vaccine breakthrough case in a tiger
There’s a headline we never thought we would write.
A partially vaccinated 11-year-old tiger at the Brookfield Zoo has tested positive for COVID-19. The zoo received confirmation of Amur tiger Malena’s positive test this week after she started showing mild respiratory symptoms, including coughing and sneezing, late last week. Those symptoms are consistent with what other zoos have seen in big cats infected with COVID-19, according to a statement from the Chicago Zoological Society.
USA: Six African lions, a Sumatran tiger and two Amur tigers infected with Covid in Washington Zoo
Photo by Frida Bredesen on Unsplash
Multi-organ damage in low-risk individuals with long Covid
Young, low risk patients with ongoing symptoms of Covid-19 had signs of damage to multiple organs four months after initially being infected, a preprint study has suggested.
Initial data from 201 patients suggest that almost 70% had impairments in one or more organs four months after their initial symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Medrxiv Preprint: Multi-organ impairment in low-risk individuals with long COVID
Photo by Piron Guillaume on Unsplash
CDC: 30% of Covid-19 patients reporting long covid symptoms
In a random sample of recovered COVID-19 patients in Long Beach, California, one third of participants reported post-acute sequelae 2 months after their positive test result, with higher rates reported among persons aged ≥40 years, females, persons with pre-existing conditions, and Black persons.
Plant-based or pescatarian diets were associated with lower odds of moderate to severe COVID-19
There were 568 COVID-19 cases and 2316 controls. Among the 568 cases, 138 individuals had moderate-to-severe COVID-19 severity whereas 430 individuals had very mild to mild COVID-19 severity.
After adjusting for important confounders, participants who reported following ‘plant-based diets’ and ‘plant-based diets or pescatarian diets’ had 73% and 59% lower odds of moderate-to-severe COVID-19 severity, respectively, compared with participants who did not follow these diets.
Compared with participants who reported following ‘plant-based diets’, those who reported following ‘low carbohydrate, high protein diets’ had greater odds of moderate-to-severe COVID-19. No association was observed between self-reported diets and COVID-19 infection or duration.
See also Washington Post: Lions refuse to eat meat after contracting Covid-19
Most common COVID-19 symptoms if you’re fully vaccinated or unvaccinated
Currently, the most common COVID-19 symptoms if you’re fully vaccinated are:
Runny nose
Headache
Sneezing
Sore throat
Loss of smell (anosmia)
Most common COVID-19 symptoms if you’re unvaccinated:
Headache
Runny Nose
Sore Throat
Fever
Persistent cough
Loss of smell (anosmia) comes further down the list for unvaccinated people, but it’s still an important predictor of having COVID-19 rather than a regular cold.
Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay
Preprint: Children with long Covid show a similar brain hypometabolic pattern as that found in adult long Covid patients
Despite lower initial severity at the acute stage of the infection, paediatric patients demonstrated on average 5 months later a similar brain hypometabolic pattern as that found in adult long COVID patients, involving bilateral medial temporal lobes, brainstem and cerebellum, and also the right olfactory gyrus after small volume correction.
Preprint: Similar patterns of [18F]-FDG brain PET hypometabolism in paediatric and adult patients with long COVID: a paediatric case series
Malaysia: surge in Covid cases and deaths involving children reported
USA: Six African lions, a Sumatran tiger and two Amur tigers infected with Covid in Washington Zoo
Six African lions, a Sumatran tiger and two Amur tigers at the National Zoo in Washington have tested positive for the coronavirus, which causes Covid-19, the Smithsonian Institution said Friday.
Animal caretakers observed appetites, coughing, sneezing and lethargy in six African lions, a Sumatran tiger and two Amur tigers, and final results were expected in coming days to confirm the presumptive positive coronavirus test results, said the Smithsonian, which operates the zoo.
“All lions and tigers are being treated with anti-inflammatories and anti-nausea medication to address discomfort and decreased appetite,” the zoo said on its website, adding that they were also being treated with antibiotics for possible secondary bacterial pneumonia.
Image by Kevinsphotos from Pixabay
Malaysia: surge in Covid cases and deaths involving children reported
Covid-19 cases in Malaysia involving children leapt to 310,074 as at the end of August, which is 25 times more than the whole of last year. The number was only 12,620 last year. A total of 41 children have died so far this year, compared with just six in 2020, the health ministry said on Sept 2.
Reports of unusual symptoms among children have also surfaced online. On Sept 8, one Penang-based doctor claimed on Instagram that she had attended to two children within the same week who could not walk after becoming infected with Covid-19. The doctor said one of the cases involved a four-year-old girl who had a seizure a week after recovering from Covid-19. Three days later, the child’s mother reported that her daughter could not walk properly.
Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay
Ethiopia: man survives triple coinfection of Covid-19, HIV, and tuberculosis
A 55-year-old male arrived at the hospital with HIV, Covid-19 and tuberculosis. On June 6, 2021, the patient recovered and was discharged after 10 days in hospital
This case report suggests, after 10 days of admission with triple infections, there is a good clinical prognosis and survival from COVID-19. On admission, further diagnosis and investigations of TB coinfection should be performed for all patients admitted with COVID-19 due to their similar and non-specific clinical manifestations.
Image by Fifaliana Joy from Pixabay
British MP: there have been 1,632 reports of deaths after Covid-19 vaccinations
Christopher Chope MP gives detailed figures for injuries and deaths caused by Covid-19 vaccines to the House of Commons in the UK Houses of Parliament. “There’s a lot more damage being done to our citizens as a result of Covid-19 vaccinations than in any other vaccination program in history”
USA: 13 western lowland gorillas test positive for COVID-19 in Atlanta
Zoo Atlanta is treating 13 western lowland gorillas who have tested positive for COVID-19. The gorillas were tested after they demonstrated mild coughing, runny noses and loss of appetite. Atlanta’s animal handlers took faecal samples and nasal and oral swabs from the gorillas and sent the samples to the Athens Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Georgia, which returned a presumptive positive result. Atlanta is waiting for confirmation from the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, which also received samples.
Atlanta Journal Consititution report
The zoo says it is treating the gorillas at risk of developing complications from SARS-CoV-2 with monoclonal antibodies. The zoo is also testing all 20 of its gorillas, who live in four troops.
Zoo officials say they believe an asymptomatic employee who cares for the gorillas passed on the virus. The employee had been fully vaccinated and was wearing protective equipment such as a mask and gloves.
** UPDATE 15th September 2021 **
The number of gorillas infected has risen to 18 out of the twenty gorillas at the park
Image by Gerhard G. from Pixabay