About five percent of people who have had COVID-19 develop lasting problems with their sense of smell or taste, said a great study on Thursday, which could contribute to Long Covid’s burden.A sense of lost smell has been a distinctive seal of contracting the coronavirus since the first days of the pandemic, but it has not been clear how often symptoms like this occur, or how long they can last.
In search of finding out, the researchers analyzed the findings of 18 previous studies involving 3,700 patients.In a new study published in the BMJ, they found that six months after hiring the virus, four percent of patients had not recovered their sense of smell, while two percent had not recovered their sense of taste.
However, it was not clear if this represented a complete or partial recovery.The researchers estimated that smell loss can persist in 5.6 percent of patients, while 4.4 percent may not completely recover their sense of taste.A woman told the researchers that she had not recovered the sense of smell of her more than two years after contracting Covid.
The researchers said that although most patients should recover their sense of smell and taste within the first three months of obtaining COVID, “an important patient group could develop a lasting dysfunction that requires timely identification, personalized treatment and personalized treatment and long -term monitoring. “
Danny Altmann, immunologist at Imperial College London not involved in the investigation, said it was a “strong and important study.””Studies like this warn us about the hidden burden of people who suffer with persistent symptoms, but perhaps not having thought it was worth contacting the head doctor in the event that there would not be much to do,” he said.
The investigation also found that women were less likely to recover these senses than men.The cause of disparity is not clear, but researchers suggested that women tend to have better smell and taste in the first place, which means they have more to lose.The data did not include which COVID variant contracted patients. Previous investigations have indicated that the most recent omicrone variants are less likely to lead to smell loss.