Long-term covid health problems affect everyone: Study

People of all ages are at risk of long-term physical and mental health problems after a Covid infection, a study has found.

Following Covid-19 infection, there is a significant new-onset illness in children, adolescents and adults across 13 distinct diagnoses and symptom complexes, according to a new study published in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine.

Previous studies have established that some people infected with Covid-19 suffer long-term health problems after the acute phase of the disease.

However, evidence for the post-acute syndrome is still limited, particularly for children and adolescents.

The new study by Martin Rössler of the Technische Universität Dresden in Germany and colleagues used a healthcare dataset covering about half the German population.

Overall, children and adolescents with Covid-19 were 30 percent more likely than controls to develop health problems three months or more after infection.