Persistent Health and Cognitive Impairments up to Four Years Post-COVID-19 in Young Students: The Impact of Virus Variants and Vaccination Timing

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11310%2F25%3A10497947" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11310/25:10497947 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=fcsD7kym8v" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=fcsD7kym8v</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines13010069" target="_blank" >10.3390/biomedicines13010069</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Persistent Health and Cognitive Impairments up to Four Years Post-COVID-19 in Young Students: The Impact of Virus Variants and Vaccination Timing

Original language description

Background: The long-term consequences of COVID-19 infection are becoming increasingly evident in recent studies. This repeated cross-sectional study aimed to explore the long-term health and cognitive effects of COVID-19, focusing on how virus variants, vaccination, illness severity, and time since infection impact post-COVID-19 outcomes. Methods: We examined three cohorts of university students (N = 584) and used non-parametric methods to assess correlations of various health and cognitive variables with SARS-CoV-2 infection, COVID-19 severity, vaccination status, time since infection, time since vaccination, and virus variants. Results: Our results suggest that some health and cognitive impairments may persist, with some even appearing to progressively worsen - particularly fatigue in women and memory in men - up to four years post-infection. The data further indicate that the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 variant may have the most significant long-term impact, while the Omicron variant appears to have the least. Interestingly, the severity of the acute illness was not correlated with the variant of SARS-CoV-2. The analysis also revealed that individuals who contracted COVID-19 after vaccination had better health and cognitive outcomes compared to those infected before vaccination. Conclusions: Overall, our results indicate that even in young individuals who predominantly experienced only mild forms of the infection, a gradual decline in health and fitness can occur over a span of four years post-infection. Notably, some negative trends - at least in men - only began to stabilize or even reverse during the fourth year, whereas in women, these trends showed no such improvement. These findings suggest that the long-term public health impacts of COVID-19 may be more severe and affect a much broader population than is commonly assumed.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10602 - Biology (theoretical, mathematical, thermal, cryobiology, biological rhythm), Evolutionary biology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA22-20785S" target="_blank" >GA22-20785S: Effects of toxoplasma and CMV infection on cognitive performance – longitudinal, cross-sectional, and case-control studies</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Biomedicines

ISSN

2227-9059

e-ISSN

2227-9059

Volume of the periodical

13

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

CH - SWITZERLAND

Number of pages

24

Pages from-to

69

UT code for WoS article

001404493900001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85215948572