World Health Organization representatives are visiting Wuhan, China, to investigate COVID-19's origins. But research in that city is already lending valuable detail to experts' sketchy image of the disease's long-term effects.
When researchers in the Lancet study tested and surveyed more than 1,700 coronavirus patients six months after their discharge from a Wuhan hospital, they found three quarters of them reported at least one symptom — typically fatigue or muscle weakness (63%) and sleep difficulties (26%).
About one-quarter reported anxiety or depression.
Patients who were severely ill were more likely to have impaired lung function and other abnormalities.
Virus-neutralizing antibodies, which studies suggest persist three months after infection, fell by more than half during the six-month study period, raising concerns over possible re-infection.
