Elucidating Post-COVID-19 manifestations in India

Fatima, G.; Bhatt, D.; Idrees, J.; Khalid, B.; Mahdi, F.

Background: In India, a large number of patients with coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), presented with common symptoms including fever, dyspnea, cough, musculoskeletal symptoms (fatigue, myalgia, joint pain) and gastrointestinal symptoms. However, information is lacking on symptoms that persist after recovery from COVID-19. In this study we assessed symptoms that persisted in patients even after their recovery and discharged from the hospital after one month from COVID-19. Methods: This study is an observational cohort study. Participants in this study were enrolled between 30 to 40 days after recovery from COVID-19 of the age 18 years or higher, who were hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed RT-PCR COVID-19 disease. Outcomes from post COVID-19 participants were elicited through questionnaire that consisted of three main parts beginning from subjects demographical data, depicting about the status of COVID-19 and other co-morbidities of the subject, and about post-COVID-19 symptoms and manifestations. Results: All subjects have reported some manifestation after recovery from COVID-19 whereas numerous symptoms and diseases were experienced by a great percentage of participants. Fatigue (56.25%), dyspnea (74.3%) and disturbed sleep (64.3%) were among the most common symptoms. However, more critical manifestations like renal failure and pulmonary fibrosis were reported by only a few percent of the subjects. Rating of worse physical and mental health after post-COVID recovery was also reported by subjects. There was a strong relationship found in between the presence of other co-morbidities before infection like diabetes, hypertension and in disease severity after infection. A total of 280 patients were enrolled and 160 completed the survey. Conclusions: Post COVID-19 sufferers often experience symptoms that cause a disturbance in their physical health, mental health and their respiratory status for several weeks even after recovery from COVID-19. Therefore, all subjects after recovering from COVID-19 should undergo long-term monitoring programme for their symptoms and condition improvement.