Of the 14,419 participants who were followed up, at least once between four weeks and one year post discharge, 942 (6.5%) had died and the remaining (93.5%) were reported alive during one year of follow up.
The median duration of death was 28 days from hospital discharge, it said.
According to the study published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research (IJMR), participants who had received at least one dose of the anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine before their Covid-19 infection had a lower risk of post-discharge mortality.
It revealed that the male gender, age above 40 years with history of moderate-to-severe Covid-19 disease, and presence of comorbidities increased the odds of death within one year of discharge from the hospital.”Multiple studies have identified increasing age as a risk factor for post-discharge death. The current analysis additionally showed that the participants younger than 18 had 1.7 times higher odds of dying after discharge from the hospital,” it said. Adding that the earlier reports showed comorbidities among admitted children were more severe, such as malignancies, kidney disorders, haematological disorders and others.”This could be hypothesised as one of the reasons for the higher odds of death among these children,” it said.The present analyses only included patients who were hospitalised due to Covid-19, and, consequently, the findings cannot be generalised to all patients who had Covid-19.
Moderate-to-severe disease, being linked to post discharge all-cause mortality, indicates lingering damage due to Covid-19, it said. Some reports have claimed that the severity of pneumonia had no bearing on post-discharge mortality.
Overall, the study warranted a vigilant follow up. “Younger as well as older age, male gender, moderate-to-severe disease and presence of comorbidities are associated with higher odds of post-discharge one-year mortality.”
