Academic medical centre Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) reported on Saturday that over half of patients with rheumatic diseases who contracted COVID-19 during the pandemic and completed a COVID-19 survey, experienced long-haul COVID, or prolonged symptoms of the infection, including loss of taste or smell, muscle aches and difficulty concentrating, for one month or longer.

Based on the study by the HSS researchers in New York City, the findings identified long-haul COVID was particularly high for smokers, patients with comorbidities including asthma or lung disease, cancer, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, congestive heart failure or myocardial infarction and those taking corticosteroids.

Medha Barbhaiya, MD, MPH, a rheumatologist at HSS, presented the study, "Risk Factors for 'Long Haul' COVID-19 in Rheumatology Outpatients in New York City," at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) annual meeting. Dr Barbhaiya's group emailed surveys to 7,505 men and women aged 18 years and older who had been treated at HSS for rheumatologic complaints between 2018 and 2020.

Among the 2,572 individuals who completed the survey, nearly 56% of patients who reported having contracted COVID-19 said their symptoms lasted at least one month, revealed HSS.

In conjunction, the HSS researchers plan to use the data as part of a longitudinal analysis of rheumatology patients with long-haul COVID to determine if the lingering symptoms of the infection interfere with their rheumatologic conditions.