Long COVID symptoms may ease after vaccine

A healthcare worker inoculates a man with a dose of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination center set up at the Bicentenario Stadium in Santiago, Chile. (AP)

• Around 10% of people who test positive for COVID-19 end up with ongoing symptoms for up to 12 weeks
• Scientists have reported that a significant portion of long COVID patients may find their symptoms reduced after they are vaccinated

LONDON: The COVID-19 vaccine may alleviate the symptoms of people suffering from long COVID, the medical phenomenon where people continue to struggle many months after contracting the disease. 
Around 10 percent of people who test positive for COVID-19 end up with ongoing symptoms for up to 12 weeks, with a smaller number facing problems for longer.
But scientists have reported that a significant portion of long COVID patients may find their symptoms reduced after they are vaccinated.
Dr. David Strain, a clinical senior lecturer at the University of Exeter who runs long COVID clinics and serves on the UK taskforce on the condition, said: “We are getting people reporting improvements, and it’s quite widespread, about half of the people we are asking. There is a major reporting bias, though — the people who notice something remarkable are the ones shouting about it.”
Strain said research is being set up to look into the reports more systematically. “This provides a bit of hope for people who have been struggling with this for 12 months or more, just to feel better for a bit. But also as researchers it tells us a lot of information: Does this give us clues about how we should be treating it? We need to look very carefully,” he added.
Prof. Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London, said he is commencing research on the topic, partly because of the vaccine hesitancy that some long COVID patients have expressed.  
“It’s very interesting because we still have no clue about the mechanisms in long COVID and what to do for patients, and also because many sufferers are very anxious about their immune status. This has led to some paradoxical vaccine hesitancy,” he added.  
Some of the current views on the phenomenon are supported by the reduction in symptoms after the vaccine.
One perspective is that sufferers have a “reservoir” of persistent COVID-19 in their bodies, and the antibodies generated by the inoculation remove that pool.
Another theory is that the vaccine’s effect on the immune system could help “reset” it, a view that applies to similar afflictions such as post-viral fatigue syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome.
Prof. Eleanor Riley, an immunologist at the University of Edinburgh, said: “One of the hypotheses about chronic fatigue syndrome is that it is a failure of the immune system to reset after a viral infection. And if that’s the case, then giving the immune system a jolt, for example by vaccination, may help to reset. But that is purely speculation.”