People who have had Covid-19 have a 55% increased risk of developing a cardiovascular disorder in the year following infection. This is shown by the follow-up of a large American cohort, published in the journal Nature Medicine of February 7. The disorders observed were of all types: heart rhythm abnormalities (arrhythmias), occurrence of blood clots (thromboses) and pulmonary embolisms, cerebrovascular accident (CVA), coronary artery disease, heart failure and myocardial infarction, and even death by one of these causes, but also inflammation of the heart or its envelope (myocarditis and pericarditis).
In total, the study included 153,760 people who tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus between 1is March 2020 and January 15, 2021 and having survived the first thirty days of illness. Very few had been vaccinated before the infection – with vaccines not being available until the end of this period.
The infected people were compared to a first group of more than 5.6 million uninfected people over the same period; and to another control group of more than 5.8 million patients followed before the pandemic, between March 2018 and January 2019. The study did not concern the Delta and Omicron variants, which appeared after the follow-up period.
“A little cold in the back”
All the medical files analyzed, made anonymous, came from the “cohort of Veterans”, managed by the American Department of Veterans Affairs and followed at Washington University in Saint-Louis. This cohort included a majority of men (89%) white (71%), with an average age of 61.4 years.
Results: between the second and the twelfth month after the infection, the risk of having an acute infarction was increased by 72%. That is, in absolute risk, 5 to 6 additional cases per 1,000 people infected. The risk of heart failure was increased by 72% (12 more cases). As well as the risk of developing “atherosclerosis”, resulting from an accumulation of fatty and protein plaques inside the walls of the arteries, slowing down the flow of blood that irrigates the heart (11 more cases). The risk of “atrial fibrillation”, a heart rhythm disorder that puts you at risk of stroke and heart failure, increased by 71% (11 more cases); the risk of pulmonary embolism by 193% (5 more cases) and the risk of stroke by 52% (4 more cases).
“This is a robust study, says Professor Xavier Jouven, head of the cardiovascular center at the European Georges-Pompidou Hospital (AP-HP, Paris). The increased risk concerns all cardiovascular events, which sends chills down my spine. »
You have 61.67% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.