The risk of mortality among Covid-19 survivors with chronic kidney diseases is 10 times higher than the general corona patients.

The scenario comes up in a study titled ‘long-term health consequences as a post-Covid-19 sequel in health-care workers’.

BSMMU Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Sharfuddin Ahmed was the lead researcher of the study.

With the financial support of the medical university, the study was carried out among 804 health-care workers of different medical institutions in the country from December 2020 to July 2022.

Patients with their kidneys transplanted also have a 50 percent higher risk of death as the efficacy of coronavirus vaccine is much lower in them.

The effectiveness of coronavirus vaccine is 87 percent among the kidney patients on dialysis. And the coronavirus vaccine can cause recurrence of nephritis.

Some 44 percent of health-care providers were infected with coronavirus in the country during the survey period and a large number of patients have been suffering from post-Covid complications, according to the study. 

The preliminary investigations from the research project found that 5-18 percent of doctors,      nurses and technicians diagnosed with Covid-19 have been suffering from different long-term post-Covid complications and in some cases, these continued for a year after the active disease

It said 5-8 percent of corona-infected people were suffering from various types of post-Covid symptoms like body ache, fatigue, headache and sleep disturbances and those persist for a year.

The complications also include loss of smell and taste that affected 50 percent of corona patients and those lasted for over a year among 5-6 percent patients.

Respiratory complications like cough persisted for a year among 8 percent corona patients while cardiac symptom palpitation continued to persist among 9 percent patients even after a year of corona infection and neurological symptoms like memory loss and poor concentration persist among 15-18 percent Covid-19 patients.

At the same time, the post-Covid complications like visual disturbances developed among 14 percent corona patients that continued to persist a year after the infection while 11.12 percent corona patients have been suffering from depression from mild to severe category as long-term Covid psychological effect.

Prof Dr Sharfuddin Ahmed said the number of health-care providers among professionals who died of coronavirus in Bangladesh is highest.

“At the same time, 40 percent of doctors and 34 percent of nurses infected with coronavirus have been suffering from long-term post-Covid complications,” he said.