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Two UK-wide research programmes, PHOSP-COVID and ISARIC-4C, have been following people who were hospitalised with Covid and went on to develop long Covid. The scientists are now publishing new data in Nature Immunology looking at symptoms and markers of inflammation in the blood in this group of people, compared to a control group who were hospitalised with Covid but didn’t go on to develop long Covid.
The study includes 426 people with long Covid and 233 people without long Covid (all of whom had been previously hospitalised with Covid), and the scientists took samples of blood plasma and measured levels of 368 proteins known to be involved in inflammation and immune system modulation. The scientists also grouped people who did have long Covid according to their symptoms to investigate whether certain groups of symptoms were associated with certain inflammatory proteins.
The study doesn’t look at people who developed long Covid after having Covid mildly in the community.
Journalists came to this online briefing to hear from the authors of the study and to ask their questions.
Speakers included:
Prof Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine, Imperial College London
Dr Felicity Liew, Clinical Research Fellow and Respiratory Registrar, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London
Prof Chris Brightling FMedSci, Clinical Professor in Respiratory Medicine, University of Leicester
Dr Ryan Thwaites, Lecturer in Respiratory Immunology, Imperial College London
This briefing was accompanied by an SMC Roundup of Comments.