By Bob Curley; Healthline
Scientists aren’t sure if there’s a cumulative effect on your health from repeated COVID-19 infections.
However, what does seem clear is that every reinfection carries the risk of serious illness, death, or long-term disability.
Reinfection “adds non-trivial risks of all-cause mortality, hospitalization, and adverse health outcomes in the acute and post-acute phase of the reinfection,” according to a new pre-print study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine and the VA Saint Louis Health Care System in Missouri.
Researchers reviewed millions of healthcare records from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
The preliminary study included data on more than 250,000 veterans who had one COVID-19 infection, nearly 39,000 people who had one or more reinfection, and more than 5 million people in a control group.
“The risk and [disease] burden increased in a graded fashion according to the number of infections,” wrote the authors of the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal.
The researchers reported that the probability of negative health outcomes due to reinfection rose regardless of vaccination status and included both the acute phase of the reinfection and long-term health issues occurring after acute symptoms such as fever and shortness of breath abated.
“What’s really eye-opening is the long-term manifestation of this disease. Most people bounce back but not everyone,” said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a study author and chief of the Resource and Development Service at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System as well as the chief epidemiologist at Washington University.
Continue reading on Healthline.com.