Notícia

Drug Today (Índia)

8% of COVID-infected athletes had persistent symptoms: Study (89 notícias)

Publicado em 09 de julho de 2022

Pointing to the need for a carefully personalised assessment of athletes and sports players who were infected by COVID19, before a resumption of training is allowed a new study by the researchers at the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil found that 8% of the athletes who have been infected with disease virus reported persistent symptoms.

In the study, which was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine recently, the researchers analysing 43 research papers that referred to some 11,500 athletes, including amateurs and high-performance professionals concluded that though the majority of them were asymptomatic or mild, between 3.5-17% of them had persistent symptoms after acute infections.

“We analysed data from acute cases to appraise manifestations and severity, as well as persistent symptoms reported after the virus had been eliminated from the organism,” Bruno Gualano, a professor at the University of São Paulo’s Medical School (FM-USP) and principal investigator for the study said in a media release.

“This scope is more comprehensive than what has become generally known as long COVID,” he added.

As many as 74% of the athletes had symptoms during the acute stage, the researchers wrote in the paper.

Noting that it is harder to compare the percentage of asymptomatic cases prof Gualano said, “Many ordinary people are infected but have such mild symptoms that they simply are not reported as confirmed cases.”

“Athletes have to be examined and assessed all the time, so mild cases are diagnosed more frequently,” he added.

Stating that 3% of the infected athletes developed exercise intolerance, Prof Gualano said, “This is not a serious or life-threatening disorder, but in the world of sport it can be a problem. For elite athletes, any difference in preparation can determine who wins medals because competition is fierce.”

As per the currently adopted protocols, the sports confederations allow a return to activity only five or six days after the symptoms of COVID19 disappear, Prof Gualano said that their study shows that not all athletes are fit to resume training after such a short period.

“Ideally, athletes should be carefully assessed, and if there are persistent symptoms, it may be necessary to ensure that training is light for a time, or even delay a resumption until all symptoms are resolved,” he said.

The review however did not confirm the heightened risk of inflammation of the heart muscle due to infection (myocarditis) among the athletes suffering from COVID19 as some previous studies suggested.

“However, the lack of evidence doesn’t mean no such relationship exists. More research needs to be done on this matter,” he stressed.

Highlighting the limitation of the study Prof Gualano said that since all the reviewed studies considered the cases before the Omicron variant was reported, the effect of the strain on the athletes should be assessed in future studies to fill the gap.

“A smaller number of athletes who come to us appear to have persistent symptoms, but we don’t know if this is due to the variant, vaccination or prior immunity. Nor do we know how well the vaccines in use protect people against the omicron sub-variants. We need to go on studying athletes in this new phase of the pandemic,” he said.