Researchers are recommending a continued vaccination programme against COVID-19 to tackle profound and lasting impacts of long Covid on heart health, along with targeted cardiovascular rehabilitation and mitigating severity of long-term symptoms.
Even as the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared an end to the public health emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic, research efforts around the world are focused on understanding the long-term burden from lingering symptoms of the viral disease which persist despite the patient recovering from acute infection.
In an article published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, the researchers, including those from the UK’s University of East Anglia, outline strategies for preventing cardiovascular complications across stages of a COVID-19 infection, including acute, re-infection, long Covid, and post-vaccination events.
“Key recommendations focus on preventing and managing cardiovascular manifestations in patients with acute or prior COVID-19, implementing targeted cardiovascular rehabilitation, and introducing interventions to mitigate the severity of Long COVID,” they wrote.
Previous studies have estimated that between 10-30% of those infected with COVID-19 are estimated to suffer from long Covid.
Among those living with long Covid, about five per cent are estimated to suffer from heart-related symptoms of long Covid, including chest pain (angina), breathlessness, arrhythmia and fatigue, the researchers said.
They also stressed on “lifestyle modifications and personalised therapeutic approaches to enhance patient outcomes.”
Author Vassilios Vassiliou, clinical professor of cardiac medicine at the University of East Anglia, said, “The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound and lasting impact on our health, with complications emerging during acute illness and recovery.”
“A lack of clear evidence-based guidance on how to reduce this suffering and prevent further harm means that patients are not receiving the care they need, and some are turning to unproven or unsafe treatments,” Vassiliou said.
The researchers analysed existing research on SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — and cardiovascular disease, including the effects of an acute infection, long Covid and vaccination.
Results from the analysis were used to determine recommendations for preventing and treating the damaging cardiovascular effects of COVID-19.
A study, published in the European Heart Journal in August, has suggested that COVID-19 infection could age one’s blood vessels by up to five years, with women having long Covid at a higher risk.
Another study, published earlier this week in the journal Nature Communications, suggested impacts to menstruation linked with long Covid, such as an abnormal uterine bleeding and a longer duration of periods.
Researchers, including those from the UK’s University of Edinburgh, said that while women have reported altered menstrual patterns in long Covid, the link has not been discerned clearly in studies that include people who have not had long Covid.
Around 12,000 women were looked at to compare patterns in menstruation — over 1,000 with long Covid, 1,716 with acute COVID-19 and more than 9,400 who never had the viral infection.
Long COVID symptoms across a menstrual cycle among 54 women were also studied.
“Results showed that long COVID was associated with increased menstrual duration, menstrual volume and bleeding between periods,” the researchers said.
