PEOPLE who had coronavirus in the last few months could be at risk of fatal complications, experts have warned.
New research has found that people who have survived Covid-19 are 63 per cent more likely to suffer a heart attack – irrespective of pre-existing conditions and age.
The paper, published in Nature Medicine, shows how important getting the vaccine is when it comes to protecting our health.
Millions of people have now received booster vaccines and health experts have repeatedly said that jabs are the best way to keep everyone safe from Omicron.
Omicron has been found to be milder than the other variants that came before it and the new study, by experts at Washington University in St Louis, US, focused on the first year of health after contracting Covid.
This means that study participants would have likely been suffering with the original strain of Covid or the Alpha strain, which was discovered in December 2020 in Kent.
The experts stated that there was an increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis in those who were not vaccinated.
However, the majority of people analysed for the study contracted the virus before they had a vaccine.
Analysis of 150,000 Covid-positive people found that the rate of conditions such as coronary disease, strokes and heart failure, was noticeably higher in those who were infected compared to those who had not.
The researchers said that this difference was also visible in people who had mild cases of the virus – so may not have been hospitalised with the bug.
In order to compare, they looked at the results of the 150,000 patients against 11 million people people who never contracted the virus.
The experts said that Covid can linger well beyond actually being infected.
The risk of heart attack increased by 63 per cent after Covid, and the risk of suffering from coronary artery disease or a stroke, was higher at 72 per cent and 52 per cent.
The UK government has invested in Long Covid centres across the country, after it was reported that as many as one in five people were suffering long-lasting symptoms of the virus.
The experts highlighted that both governments and health systems around the world should be prepared to deal with a ‘rise in the burden of cardiovascular diseases’.
“Because of the chronic nature of these conditions, they will likely have long-lasting consequences for patients and health systems and also have broad implications on economic productivity and life expectancy”, they added.
