Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Observational Study
. 2023 Mar:128:102-111.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2022.12.036. Epub 2022 Dec 29.

A cohort study of post-COVID-19 condition across the Beta, Delta, and Omicron waves in South Africa: 6-month follow-up of hospitalized and nonhospitalized participants

Waasila Jassat  1 , Caroline Mudara  2 , Caroline Vika  2 , Richard Welch  3 , Tracy Arendse  3 , Murray Dryden  2 , Lucille Blumberg  3 , Natalie Mayet  2 , Stefano Tempia  4 , Arifa Parker  5 , Jeremy Nel  6 , Rubeshan Perumal  7 , Michelle J Groome  8 , Francesca Conradie  9 , Norbert Ndjeka  10 , Louise Sigfrid  11 , Laura Merson  11 , Cheryl Cohen  4
Affiliations
Observational Study

A cohort study of post-COVID-19 condition across the Beta, Delta, and Omicron waves in South Africa: 6-month follow-up of hospitalized and nonhospitalized participants

Waasila Jassat et al. Int J Infect Dis. 2023 Mar.

Abstract

Objectives: The study aimed to describe the prevalence of and risk factors for post-COVID-19 condition (PCC).

Methods: This was a prospective, longitudinal observational cohort study. Hospitalized and nonhospitalized adults were randomly selected to undergo telephone assessment at 1, 3, and 6 months. Participants were assessed using a standardized questionnaire for the evaluation of symptoms and health-related quality of life. We used negative binomial regression models to determine factors associated with the presence of ≥1 symptoms at 6 months.

Results: A total of 46.7% of hospitalized and 18.5% of nonhospitalized participants experienced ≥1 symptoms at 6 months (P ≤0.001). Among hospitalized people living with HIV, 40.4% had persistent symptoms compared with 47.1% among participants without HIV (P = 0.108). The risk factors for PCC included older age, female sex, non-Black race, presence of a comorbidity, greater number of acute COVID-19 symptoms, hospitalization/COVID-19 severity, and wave period (lower risk of persistent symptoms for the Omicron compared with the Beta wave). There were no associations between self-reported vaccination status with persistent symptoms.

Conclusion: The study revealed a high prevalence of persistent symptoms among South African participants at 6 months but decreased risk for PCC among participants infected during the Omicron BA.1 wave. These findings have serious implications for countries with resource-constrained health care systems.

Keywords: Long COVID; Omicron; Post-COVID-19 condition; Risk factors; Variants.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Percentage of hospitalized and non-hospitalized participants with ≥1 persistent symptoms, at 1, 3 and 6-months post-SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Frequency of most common symptoms among hospitalized and non-hospitalized participants at 6-months follow-up.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Percentage of hospitalized participants with ≥ 1 symptoms at 1, 3 and 6-month follow-up, by SARS-CoV-2 variant.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Percentage of hospitalized participants with decreased quality of life domains at 1, 3 and 6-month follow-up.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Soriano JB, Murthy S, Marshall JC, Relan P, Diaz JV. WHO Clinical Case Definition Working Group on Post-COVID-19 Condition. A clinical case definition of post-COVID-19 condition by a Delphi consensus. Lancet Infect Dis. 2022;22 doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(21)00703-9. e102–7. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Fernandez-de-Las-Peñas C, Palacios-Cena D, Gomez-Mayordomo V, Florencio LL, Cuadrado ML, et al. Prevalence of post-COVID-19 symptoms in hospitalized and non-hospitalized COVID-19 survivors: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur J Intern Med. 2021;92:55–70. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Han Q, Zheng B, Daines L, Sheikh A. Long-Term sequelae of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis of one-year follow-up studies on post-COVID symptoms. Pathogens. 2022;11:269. doi: 10.3390/pathogens11020269. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Huang L, Li X, Gu X, Zhang H, Ren L, et al. Health outcomes in people 2 years after surviving hospitalisation with COVID-19: a longitudinal cohort study. Lancet Respir Med. 2022;10:863–876. doi: 10.1016/S2213-2600(22)00126-6. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Michelen M, Manoharan L, Elkheir N, Cheng V, Dagens A. Characterising long COVID: a living systematic review. BMJ Glob Health. 2021;6 doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2021-005427. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types