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Image representing red blood cells
Researchers in the UK are investigating a potential link between blood clots and long-term symptoms after a Covid infection, and whether treatment with anticoagulants can help reduce long-term Covid conditions, the media said. communication.
Long Covid is defined as having new or ongoing symptoms four weeks or more after the onset of the disease. Symptoms, which include fatigue, difficulty breathing, loss of concentration, and joint pain, can last for months and even more than a year.
Previous studies have noted that a Covid infection increases the risk of blood clots. Infected people are at increased risk for related conditions, such as stroke, heart attack and deep vein thrombosis, The Guardian reported.
Professor Ami Banerjee of University College London is leading a study called Stimulate-ICP, where 4,500 people with long Covid will be divided into four groups in which participants receive regular care, antihistamines, an anti-inflammatory or anticoagulant drug for three years. months.
“This will allow us to say if this improves fatigue and other outcomes of people with long Covid,” Banerjee said.
A Cambridge University research study called Heal-Covid includes people hospitalized with Covid and aims to identify treatments that can help prevent or reduce ongoing symptoms, according to the report.
“Heal-Covid is not a study that treats people with long Covid, we aim to keep things from getting to this point,” said the lead researcher, Professor Charlotte Summers, of Cambridge.
The team recruited 1,118 participants, with one arm of the trial involving participants receiving anticoagulants.
“The trial included anticoagulants, as it was thought that there was an increase in the number of large blood clots that occurred in the posthospital phase of the disease rather than microcoagulations,” Summers said.
In addition, a team at the University of Leicester is also investigating the clotting problem, according to the report.
The post-hospitalization Covid-19 study studies whether people with continued symptoms after hospitalization have chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension. If this is found, it would be solid evidence that microcoagles are a substantial problem, said chief researcher Chris Brightling, a professor of respiratory medicine at the University.
“While if we don’t see it, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that obviously certain people have clots, but it would make it less likely to be intrinsically a major problem,” he said.